tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18016767057627745782017-08-17T07:00:47.295-04:00Cerebral Girl in a Redneck WorldDoing my part to keep books from going the way of the dodo bird...nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.comBlogger1350125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-70131688121702729122017-07-12T14:31:00.000-04:002017-07-12T14:31:03.887-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1487958944l/32600726.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="314" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1487958944l/32600726.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><b><i>Synopsis</i></b><br /><br /><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"><b>With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of <i>gods in Alabama</i> pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality---the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.</b><br /><br /><i>Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.<br /><br />It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy--an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.<br /><br />Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.</i></span><br /><br /><br /><b><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"><i>About the Author</i></span></b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cseR3qryGO0/WWYtPey1sfI/AAAAAAAAG8w/_GyISmhEQYAxgjWqYgUOtcuunoJlt7a_QCLcBGAs/s1600/Joshilyn%2BJackson%2BAP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="100" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cseR3qryGO0/WWYtPey1sfI/AAAAAAAAG8w/_GyISmhEQYAxgjWqYgUOtcuunoJlt7a_QCLcBGAs/s1600/Joshilyn%2BJackson%2BAP.jpg" /></a></div><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"><i>Joshilyn Jackson is the <b>New York Times</b> bestselling author of seven novels, including <b>gods in Alabama</b> and <b>A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty</b>. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages. A former actor, Jackson is also an award-winning audiobook narrator. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her husband and their two children.&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"></span><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"></span><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"><i>Check out the author's <a href="http://www.joshilynjackson.com/jj/splash/">website</a></i></span><br /><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"><i>Follow the author on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JoshilynJackson">Facebook</a></i></span><br /><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"><i>Follow the author on <a href="https://twitter.com/joshilynjackson">Twitter </a></i></span><br /><br /><br /><b><span id="freeText4048320603683363570"><i>My Thoughts</i></span></b><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span id="freeText4048320603683363570">My son, Digby, began at exactly 3:02 in the morning on the first Friday in June.&nbsp;</span></blockquote>Leia (gotta love the name for a character who straddles the geek world) is a top-knotch graphic artist who has a one-night stand with a costumed attendee at a type of Comic Con convention. She doesn't know his name or really know what he looks like, other than the fact that he was black and had a nice smile and gentle eyes, but she is shocked (and later finds she is pleased) to discover that her reckless one-night stand has left her "in the family way". At 38 and single, she recognizes that this may be her last chance for children, so she happily embraces the situation.<br /><br />As a little girl, Leia's father died and left her mother to raise her alone until her remarried. Her stepfather Keith was a good father to her and Leia loves him, and with their marriage she also gained a step-sister. Rachel was her same age, and they were close as sisters growing up.<br /><br />So, of course, when it comes time to tell someone about her pregnancy, Rachel is the first person she tries to share the news with. However when she arrives at Rachel's house, she discovers Rachel in the midst of her own personal crisis, causing leia to squash her news for the time being. Then Leia gets news that her paternal grandmother is ill and has her small town in an uproar. Leia leaves to see her grandmother, taking her niece Lavender with her to save her from the unrest going on in her home.<br /><br />And just when you think that things can't get any tougher for this family, a mystery is unearthed at Leia's grandmother's house that begins a legal investigation involving the contents of a trunk found in the attic.<br /><br />I don't believe I've read anything by this author before, although I was familiar with her name and previous books. But I've gotta say, I was really pleasantly surprised once I got going with the story. The author's writing is really easy-to-read and engaging. The characters are fleshed out. I got a real feel for their distinct personalities, their motivations and their needs and desires. Even the cadence of their voices came through loud and clear! I always know that a book has grabbed me if I can see the movie playing in my head, and this was one of those books!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2017/07/joshilyn-jackson-author-of-the-almost-sisters-on-tour-july-2017/">website </a>for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Tuesday, July 11th: <a href="http://pagebypagebookbybook.blogspot.com/">Book by Book</a><br />Wednesday, July 12th: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br />Thursday, July 13th: <a href="http://bookchickdi.blogspot.com/">bookchickdi</a><br />Friday, July 14th: <a href="http://mytime2read.blogspot.com/">Time 2 Read</a><br />Monday, July 17th: <a href="http://www.booksaremything.blogspot.com/">Tina Says…</a><br />Tuesday, July 18th: <a href="http://www.stephthebookworm.blogspot.com/">StephTheBookworm</a><br />Wednesday, July 19th: <a href="http://booknaround.blogspot.com/">BookNAround</a><br />Thursday, July 20th: <a href="http://www.thebookdivasreads.com/">The Book Diva’s Reads</a><br />Friday, July 21st: <a href="http://www.bibliotica.com/">Bibliotica</a><br />Monday, July 24th: <a href="http://achickwhoreads.blogspot.com/">A Chick Who Reads</a><br />Tuesday, July 25th: <a href="http://www.leighkramer.com/">Leigh Kramer</a><br />Wednesday, July 26th: <a href="http://alwayswithabook.blogspot.com/">Always With a Book</a><br />Thursday, July 27th: <a href="http://msnoseinabook.com/">Ms. Nose in a Book</a><br />Thursday, July 27th: <a href="http://winingwife.com/">Wining Wife</a><br />Friday, July 28th: <a href="http://sj2bhouseofbooks.blogspot.co.uk/">SJ2B House Of Books</a><br />Monday, July 31st: <a href="http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/">she treads softly</a><br /><br /><br /><i><b>My final word:</b></i><br />I really loved this book! The author's writing is very approachable, and makes for a fast read. Even I, who is a very slow reader, could knock this book out in a few days. There is enough intrigue and enough twists and turns and drama to keep you wanting to read on and not put the book down, but there is also humor (I actually chuckled aloud at one point, which is very rare for me!) and sentimentality, and you'll likely find yourself tearing up more than once. I quite happily and heartily recommend this one as the perfect summer read!<br /><br /><i><b>Buy Now:</b></i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062105714/the-almost-sisters">HarperCollins</a><br /><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-almost-sisters-joshilyn-jackson/1124807449?ean=9780062105714">Barnes and Noble</a><br /><a href="http://amzn.to/2tP5ZyP">Amazon</a><br /><br /><i><b>My Rating:</b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-REWkLRwhKf0/WWZqkc46nTI/AAAAAAAAG88/XN2DuFlg5kctLifuGP3iQrFUcjWz_mooQCLcBGAs/s1600/A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="61" data-original-width="62" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-REWkLRwhKf0/WWZqkc46nTI/AAAAAAAAG88/XN2DuFlg5kctLifuGP3iQrFUcjWz_mooQCLcBGAs/s1600/A.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The book that I received was an uncorrected proof, and quotes could differ from the final release. &nbsp;</i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-28545326841355324472017-06-12T07:00:00.000-04:002017-06-12T07:00:04.210-04:00Mailbox Monday (6/12/17 edition)<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FEi7OGwPh1Y/TidxBzRbprI/AAAAAAAAD7E/6VOp-pEw6Jk/s1600/bigstock_Rural_Mailbox_127425.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FEi7OGwPh1Y/TidxBzRbprI/AAAAAAAAD7E/6VOp-pEw6Jk/s320/bigstock_Rural_Mailbox_127425.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 78%; font-style: italic;">&nbsp;Image licensed from bigstockphoto.com </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 78%; font-style: italic;">Copyright stands</span></div><br />Mailbox Monday is hosted <a href="http://mailboxmonday.wordpress.com/">here</a>. I've received a few new books recently:<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1462393298l/29983711.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="315" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1462393298l/29983711.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><i><b>Pachinko by Min Jin Lee</b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText14095727907170379420"><i>Pachinko</i> follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. <br /><br />So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474560136l/30687200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="271" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474560136l/30687200.jpg" width="135" /></a></div><i><b>The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel</b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText11978091079912815901"><b>Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality--not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.</b><br /><br />In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life--why did he leave? what did he learn?--as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1494054626l/32620332.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="306" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1494054626l/32620332.jpg" width="128" /></a></div><br /><b><i><span id="freeText11978091079912815901">The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid</span></i></b><br /><br /><span id="freeText11978091079912815901"><span id="freeText11467130592307813083">From Taylor Jenkins Reid comes an unforgettable and sweeping novel about one classic film actress’s relentless rise to the top—the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.<br /><br />Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?<br /><br />Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.<br /><br />Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds through the decades—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.<br /><br />Filled with emotional insight and written with Reid’s signature talent, this is a fascinating journey through the splendor of Old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means—and what it takes—to face the truth.</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1479254320l/32912923.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="259" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1479254320l/32912923.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><br /><b><i><span id="freeText11978091079912815901">The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis</span></i></b><br /><br /><span id="freeText8766705304314638765">ELKA BARELY REMEMBERS a time before she knew Trapper. She was just seven years old, wandering lost and hungry in the wilderness, when the solitary hunter took her in. In the years since then, he's taught her how to survive in this desolate land where civilization has been destroyed and men are at the mercy of the elements and each other. <br />But the man Elka thought she knew has been harboring a terrible secret. He's a killer. A monster. And now that Elka knows the truth, she may be his next victim. <br />Armed with nothing but her knife and the hard lessons Trapper's drilled into her, Elka flees into the frozen north in search of her real parents. But judging by the trail of blood dogging her footsteps, she hasn't left Trapper behind--and he won't be letting his little girl go without a fight. If she's going to survive, Elka will have to turn and confront not just him, but the truth about the dark road she's been set on. <br /><i>The Wolf Road </i>is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape--told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity.</span><br /><br /><span id="freeText8766705304314638765"><i>I'm grateful to the publisher for sending me this book. I only got half-way through it when I got it from Netgalley before it expired, so now I can finish it and do a real review!</i></span><br /><span id="freeText8766705304314638765"><i>&nbsp;</i> </span><br /><br /><b><span id="freeText11978091079912815901">From TLC Book Tours:</span></b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1487958944l/32600726.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="314" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1487958944l/32600726.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><b><i><span id="freeText11978091079912815901">The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson</span></i></b><br /><span id="freeText11978091079912815901"></span><br /><br /><span id="freeText6673573719716386445"><b>With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of <i>gods in Alabama</i> pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality---the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.</b><br /><br />Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.<br /><br />It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy--an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.<br /><br />Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.</span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-52184299767589508612017-05-30T16:23:00.000-04:002017-05-30T16:23:15.813-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1450648776l/27213250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="265" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1450648776l/27213250.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><i><b>Synopsis</b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText7839069727407075685"><b>A vivid, unforgettable story of an unlikely sisterhood—an emotionally powerful and haunting story of friendship that illuminates the plight of women in a traditional culture, from the author of the bestselling <i>The Pearl That Broke Its Shell</i> and <i>When the Moon Is Low</i>.</b><br /><i><br />For two decades, Zeba was a loving wife, a patient mother, and a peaceful villager. But her quiet life is shattered when her husband, Kamal, is found brutally murdered with a hatchet in the courtyard of their home. Nearly catatonic with shock, Zeba is unable to account for her whereabouts at the time of his death. Her children swear their mother could not have committed such a heinous act. Kamal’s family is sure she did, and demands justice. Barely escaping a vengeful mob, Zeba is arrested and jailed.<br /><br />Awaiting trial, she meets a group of women whose own misfortunes have led them to these bleak cells: eighteen-year-old Nafisa, imprisoned to protect her from an “honor killing”; twenty-five-year-old Latifa, a teen runaway who stays because it is safe shelter; twenty-year-old Mezghan, pregnant and unmarried, waiting for a court order to force her lover’s hand. Is Zeba a cold-blooded killer, these young women wonder, or has she been imprisoned, like them, for breaking some social rule? For these women, the prison is both a haven and a punishment; removed from the harsh and unforgiving world outside, they form a lively and indelible sisterhood.<br /><br />Into this closed world comes Yusuf, Zeba’s Afghan-born, American-raised lawyer whose commitment to human rights and desire to help his homeland have brought him back. With the fate this seemingly ordinary housewife in his hands, Yusuf discovers that, like the Afghanistan itself, his client may not be at all what he imagines.<br /><br />A moving look at the lives of modern Afghan women, <b>The House with No Windows</b> is astonishing, frightening, and triumphant.</i></span><br /><br /><span id="freeText7839069727407075685">Hardcover, 415 pages<br />Published August 16th 2016 by William Morrow (first published August 15th 2016)<br />ISBN 0062449680 (ISBN13: 9780062449689)</span><br /><br /><br /><b><span id="freeText7839069727407075685"><i>About the Author</i></span></b><br /><br /><span id="freeText7839069727407075685"><i>Nadia Hashimi was born and raised in New York and New Jersey. Both her parents were born in Afghanistan and left in the early 1970s, before the Soviet invasion. In 2002, Nadia made her first trip to Afghanistan with her parents. She is a pediatrician and lives with her family in the Washington, DC, suburbs.</i></span><br /><span id="freeText7839069727407075685"><i><br /></i></span><span id="freeText7839069727407075685">Check out the author's <a href="http://nadiahashimi.com/">website</a></span><br /><span id="freeText7839069727407075685">Follow the author on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NadiaHashimiBooks">Facebook</a></span><br /><span id="freeText7839069727407075685">Follow the author on <a href="https://twitter.com/NadiaHashimi">Twitter</a></span><br /><br /><br /><b><span id="freeText7839069727407075685"><i>My Thoughts</i></span></b><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span id="freeText7839069727407075685"><i>I suppose this bloody mess might partly be my fault. </i></span></blockquote>Zeba has been a good wife, mother, daughter and neighbor (although, because she is the daughter of a sorceress, there is a wariness between her and the rest of her extended family), but her marriage has continued to degrade over the years. Her once doting husband has become abusive, neglectful of the family, drinking away their food money. Then one day Zeba is found over his dead body with no memory of what happened, and the village calls for her blood.<br /><br />The chief of police arrests Zeba and quickly takes her to the women's prison for her own safety, knowing the villagers may come for justice. Zeba is roomed with three other women: Latifa, Nafisa and Mezhgan. Women are housed in this prison for all sorts of crimes, but many are there for "love crimes"-- adultery, falling in love with the wrong man, being caught alone with a man unsupervised, etc. Most have been found to have brought dishonor to their families. While Zeba awaits her trial, she befriends these women and becomes like a sister to them. She learns their stories, their likes and dislikes, their pain and fear, and their passions.<br /><br />Yusuf was once an Afghan boy, his family having immigrated to America when he was about twelve. Now he is an attorney who has returned to his homeland and has been hired as Zeba's council. As if her case weren't difficult enough, Yusuf finds his hands tied by her refusal to share with him anything she remembers about the day her husband died, nor about their life together leading up to his death.<br /><br />I was introduced to the author with her book <i>When the Moon is Low</i>, and I loved this one just as much as I did that one. The author has an engaging yet easy-to-read writing style.<br /><br /><br /><span id="freeText7839069727407075685"><i><br /></i></span> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2017/05/nadia-hashimi-author-of-a-house-without-windows-on-tour-may-2017/">website </a>for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Wednesday, May 17th: <a href="https://reallifereading.com/2017/05/17/a-house-without-windows-nadia-hashimi/">Real Life Reading</a><br />Wednesday, May 17th: <a href="http://abookishaffair.blogspot.com/2017/05/review-house-without-windows-by-nadia.html">A Bookish Affair</a><br />Thursday, May 18th: <a href="http://www.helensbookblog.com/2017/05/review-house-without-windows-by-nadia.html">Helen’s Book Blog</a><br />Friday, May 19th: <a href="http://booksaremything.blogspot.com/2017/05/tlc-book-tour-house-without-windows.html">Tina Says…</a><br />Monday, May 22nd: <a href="http://readingismysuperpower.org/">Reading is My Super Power</a><br />Tuesday, May 23rd: <a href="http://www.girl-who-reads.com/">Girl Who Reads</a><br />Wednesday, May 24th: <a href="http://www.fromthetbrpile.blogspot.com/">From the TBR Pile</a><br />Wednesday, May 24th: <a href="http://booknaround.blogspot.com/">BookNAround</a><br />Thursday, May 25th: <a href="http://www.thebookdivasreads.com/">The Book Diva’s Reads</a><br />Friday, May 26th: <a href="http://readherlikeanopenbook.wordpress.com/">Read Her Like an Open Book</a><br />Monday, May 29th: <a href="http://www.spiritblog.net/">Based on a True Story</a><br />Tuesday, May 30th: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br />Wednesday, May 31st: <a href="http://aliteraryvacation.blogspot.com/">A Literary Vacation</a><br />Thursday, June 1st: <a href="http://gjackswrites.com/blogging/">G. Jacks Writes</a><br />Friday, June 2nd: <a href="http://www.jennsbookshelves.com/">Jenn’s Bookshelves</a><br />TBD: <a href="http://pagebypagebookbybook.blogspot.com/">Book by Book</a><br /><br /><br /><i><b>My final word: </b></i>The author has a very "approachable" writing style which is very comfortable to read, like slipping into a pair of comfy PJs at the end of a hard day. She knows how to write well-fleshed characters of some depth that pull you into the story and keep you there. This story runs the gamut of happiness to melancholy, love to hate, fear of the present to dreams for the future.You care not only for Zeba and Yusuf and their futures, but for the lives of the other women who share Zeba's life in prison. A beautiful yet heart-wrenching tale that I recommend to anyone who loves to immerse themselves into another culture.<br /><br /><i><b>Buy Now:</b></i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062449689/a-house-without-windows">HarperCollins</a><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-house-without-windows-nadia-hashimi/1123198622?ean=9780062449658">Barnes and Noble</a><br /><a href="http://amzn.to/2r2nHgJ">Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/search/book?searchfor=house+without+windows">IndieBound</a><br /><br /><i><b>My Rating:</b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m2pVbGw_l40/WS3Tv3izLQI/AAAAAAAAG5o/Nh3EX27LEmgJ6SICL3pDei9ic69niEY_ACLcB/s1600/A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="61" data-original-width="62" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m2pVbGw_l40/WS3Tv3izLQI/AAAAAAAAG5o/Nh3EX27LEmgJ6SICL3pDei9ic69niEY_ACLcB/s1600/A.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp;<i><b><br /></b></i> <br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. </i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-87151022742756993362017-05-23T15:08:00.000-04:002017-05-23T15:08:56.050-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: All That is Solid Melts Into Air by Carole Giangrande<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1490351780l/32686819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1490351780l/32686819.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><i><b>Synopsis</b></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText15274177710797881372">In the morning fog of the North Atlantic, Valerie hears the frenetic ticking of clocks. She's come from Toronto to hike on the French island of St. Pierre and to ponder her marriage to Gerard Lefevre, a Montrealer and a broadcast journalist whose passion for justice was ignited in his youth by the death of his lover in an airline bombing. He's a restless traveller (who she suspects is unfaithful) and she's the opposite: quiet, with an inner life she nurtures as a horticulturalist. Valerie's thinking about Gerard on assignment in her native New York City, where their son Andre works. In New York City, an airplane has plunged into a skyscraper, and in the short time before anyone understands the significance of this event, Valerie's mind begins to spiral in and out of the present moment, circling around her intense memories of her father's death, her youthful relationship with troubled Matthew, and her pregnancy with his child, the crisis that led to her marriage to Gerard, and her fears for the safety of her son Andre and his partner James. Unable to reach her loved ones, Valerie finds memory intruding on a surreal and dreamlike present until at last she connects with Gerard and the final horror of that day.</span></i><br /><br /><b><i><span id="freeText15274177710797881372">Praise</span></i></b><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText15274177710797881372"><span id="freeText15274177710797881372">"With shattering grace Giangrande divines catastrophic grief, the redemptive power of ephemeral joys, and the interconnectedness of all things as past and present conflate in terrorism's chaos. Memory becomes balm as life, all life, is porous. Exquisite, devastating, this book is a bomb."<br /><br />—Carol Bruneau, author of These Good Hands<br /><br />"An elegy for lost innocence, <b>All That Is Solid Melts Into Air</b> is at once extremely sad and exquisitely hopeful. Its hopefulness resides mainly in the stubborn resonance of the quotidian, and in the kind hearts and good wills of those who refuse to accept evil, no matter how often it crashes into their lives. Carole Giandgrande has achieved a great deal in this short, beautiful book; confronting the incomprehensible without despair and describing profound grief without sentimentality."<br /><br />—Susan Glickman, author of The Tale-Teller and Safe as Houses<br /><br />"<b>All That Is Solid Melts Into Air</b> is above all a compassionate book. Carole Giangrande takes that horrifying day—September 11, 2001—and filters it though the consciousness of a woman, Valerie, whose loved ones are in Manhattan as the crisis unfolds. She doesn’t know whether they are dead or alive, and Giangrande is masterful in her expression of Valerie’s surreal state of mind. The book captures with gut-wrenching acuity the anxiety, fear and distress of not only that particular day but of our current social climate as well. No one is safe anymore—was anyone, ever?—and our perceptions rule us: “The truth was that everything you looked at had to pass through the lens of what you imagined you saw. It was up to you to decide what was real.” Timely words from a timely book."<br /><br />—Eva Tihanyi, author of The Largeness of Rescue</span>&nbsp; </span></i><br /><br /><div class="row"><span itemprop="bookFormatType">Paperback</span>, <span itemprop="numberOfPages">200 pages</span></div><div class="row">Published April 10th 2017 by Inanna Publications </div><div class="clearFloats"><div class="infoBoxRowItem">ISBN 1771333618 <span class="greyText">(ISBN13: <span itemprop="isbn">9781771333610</span>)</span></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><br /><br /><i><b><span class="greyText">About the Author</span></b></i></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2VJu8Gb82yg/WSRwKdM0ZCI/AAAAAAAAG48/ZkwaIPRkFRES-Qv1oC7KRT-m_SuV31EugCLcB/s1600/Carole%2BGiangrande%2BAP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2VJu8Gb82yg/WSRwKdM0ZCI/AAAAAAAAG48/ZkwaIPRkFRES-Qv1oC7KRT-m_SuV31EugCLcB/s200/Carole%2BGiangrande%2BAP.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText"><i>Born and raised in the New York City area, Carole Giangrande is a Toronto-based novelist and author of nine books, including the award-winning novella <b>A Gardener on the Moon</b>, the novels <b>An Ordinary Star</b> and <b>A Forest Burning</b>, the short story collection, <b>Missing Persons</b> and the novellas <b>Here Comes The Dreamer</b> and <b>Midsummer</b>. Her third novel, <b>All That Is Solid Melts Into Air</b> will be published in Spring 2017. She's worked as a broadcast journalist for CBC Radio (Canada's public broadcaster) and her fiction, poetry, articles and reviews have appeared in Canada’s major journals and newspapers (Her essay "Goshawk" was Lyric Essay Award Winner in the Eastern Iowa Review, 2016). She's read her fiction at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre, at the Banff Centre for the Arts (as an Artist-in-Residence), the University of Toronto, on radio and at numerous public venues. She has recently completed another novel.</i>&nbsp;</span><br /><br /></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">Check out the author's <a href="http://carolegiangrande.com/">website</a></span></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">Follow the author on <a href="https://twitter.com/CaroleGian">Twitter</a></span></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">Follow the author on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CarolesAuthorPage">Facebook</a></span><br /><br /></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><br /><i><b><span class="greyText">My Thoughts</span></b></i></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">As she walked uphill on Rue Marechal Foch in the old town of Saint-Pierre, Valerie heard clocks. </span></div></blockquote><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">Valerie and husband Gerard are adrift and unmoored and losing sight of one another when an airliner crashes into the Twin Towers on 9/11, leaving them shaken and grasping for anything to keep them from going under. The past blends with the present, one nearly indistinguishable from the other.&nbsp;</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="greyText">Memory was too aggressive. It would root you out with a wild growl, sniffing and pawing at the ground. It would make you afraid. </span></blockquote><span class="greyText">This is one of those tough books to review, because I feel that just about anything I share will be too much. Other than flashbacks to the past, the bulk of the story only covers a couple of days. So I fear if I'm not careful, I'll ruin the story. But the story follows Valerie and her husband Gerard, her friend Matthew from the past, and Valerie and Gerard's son Andre.&nbsp;</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="greyText">At eight forty-six a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, the watch stopped.&nbsp;</span> </blockquote></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours and the publisher for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2013/10/jennifer-cody-epstein-author-of-the-gods-of-heavenly-punishment-on-tour-januaryfebruary-2014/">website </a>for the full tour schedule:</span><br />Monday, May 15th: <a href="https://readaholiczone.blogspot.com/2017/05/all-that-is-solid-melts-into-air.html">Readaholic Zone</a><br />Tuesday, May 16th: <a href="http://booksaremything.blogspot.com/2017/05/tlc-book-tour-all-that-is-solid-melts.html">Tina Says…</a><br />Wednesday, May 17th: <a href="http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/05/review-solid-melts-air-carole-giangrande/">Literary Quicksand</a><br />Tuesday, May 23rd: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br />Friday, May 26th: <a href="http://booksandbindings.com/">Books and Bindings</a><br />Thursday, May 25th: <a href="http://www.girl-who-reads.com/">Girl Who Reads</a><br />Monday, May 29th: <a href="http://www.fromthetbrpile.blogspot.com/">From the TBR Pile</a><br />Wednesday, May 31st: <a href="http://abookishwayoflife.blogspot.com/">A Bookish Way of Life</a><br />Wednesday, May 31st: <a href="http://www.5minutesforbooks.com/">5 Minutes For Books</a><br /><br /><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><i><b><span class="greyText">My final word:</span></b></i><span class="greyText"> This is a very slow-moving story. Cleverly derived, it's gentle and guttural-- primal even, like a gut-punch. It's a bit disjointed, with little snippets of dialogue and blips in time, and somewhat ethereal and mystical. The first half was almost too slow for me, but I really liked the second half of the story, and the last third was my favorite. At times quite powerful, this is a great story about acceptance, balance, and settling debts. The cyclic nature of life, and how everything comes back around again. A touching story.</span><br /><span class="greyText"><br /></span><i><b><span class="greyText">Buy Now:</span></b></i><br /><span class="greyText"><br /></span></div><a href="https://www.inanna.ca/index.php/catalog/all-solid-melts-air/"><span class="greyText">Inanna Publications</span></a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1771333618/ref=x_gr_w_bb_sout?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=x_gr_w_bb_sout-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1771333618&amp;SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2"><span class="greyText">Amazon</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/all-that-is-solid-melts-into-air-carole-giangrande/1125023955?ean=9781771333610&amp;st=AFF&amp;2sid=Goodreads,%20Inc_2227948_NA&amp;sourceId=AFFGoodreads,%20IncM000004"><span class="greyText">Barnes and Noble</span></a><br /><br /><i><b><span class="greyText">My Rating:</span></b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9rjXDy-osik/WSSG_1iVu0I/AAAAAAAAG5M/fHN3Obpz9woWaCVF5z1k01ZEHG59Kl-SgCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9rjXDy-osik/WSSG_1iVu0I/AAAAAAAAG5M/fHN3Obpz9woWaCVF5z1k01ZEHG59Kl-SgCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><span class="greyText"><br /></span><span class="greyText"><br /></span><span class="greyText"><br /></span><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.&nbsp;</i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-17020072314589541892017-04-30T08:22:00.001-04:002017-04-30T08:22:19.194-04:00READATHON April 2017: Closing Meme<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zFXPl3onLes/WQXUMDSkZqI/AAAAAAAAG3s/CLXB6Hjrcg4hSpN8Iwfqeewid5gP61zhACLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zFXPl3onLes/WQXUMDSkZqI/AAAAAAAAG3s/CLXB6Hjrcg4hSpN8Iwfqeewid5gP61zhACLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" /></a></div><br />Here we are at the end of the road once again. I was along for only part of the ride-- life is just too distracting these days.<br /><br />1. Which hour was most daunting for you? <span style="color: red;">They all are. I'm my own worst enemy.</span><br />2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a reader engaged for next year? <span style="color: red;">Nothing can hold my interest for long anymore. My attention-deficit just continues to worsen.</span><br />3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next season? <span style="color: red;">Nope</span><br />4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? <span style="color: red;">I didn't notice any drastic differences.</span><br />5. How many books did you read? <span style="color: red;">I didn't complete anything. I read a little of two different books.</span><br />6. What were the names of the books you read? <span style="color: red;">I had four books to select from, but mostly just read <i>Rebel Queen</i> by Michelle Moran and a little of <i>All That Is Solid Melts Into Air</i> by Carol Giangrande.</span><br />7. Which book did you enjoy most? <span style="color: red;"><i>Rebel Queen</i></span><br />8. Which did you enjoy least? <span style="color: red;">Well, of the two that would leave <i>All That Is Solid Melts Into Air</i>, but I really just started to read it. I have a long way to go yet!</span><br />9. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? <span style="color: red;">I'll usually participate, and will always be a reader (when I can commit).</span><br /><br /><span style="color: red;">&nbsp;<span style="color: black;">So that would be it. I'm going to continue trying to get some reading in today, and I'll see you all back here in the fall.</span> </span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-24267191665901652772017-04-29T08:16:00.000-04:002017-04-29T08:16:54.813-04:00READATHON April 2017: Opening Meme<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tPOR1d8BnwE/WQSAVmgTVuI/AAAAAAAAG3Q/W_jYDwhzMxcoTalm7ffjOo6VdYc-bSfKQCLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tPOR1d8BnwE/WQSAVmgTVuI/AAAAAAAAG3Q/W_jYDwhzMxcoTalm7ffjOo6VdYc-bSfKQCLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" /></a></div><br />Here we are again, gathering together around the world to commit to a single goal-- READ. I will do what I can to get some real reading done, but I have mightily failed the last year or two. But this is a clean slate! So let's get this party started!<br /><br />1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? <span style="color: red;">South Florida</span><br />2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? <span style="color: red;">Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran</span><br />3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? <span style="color: red;">I didn't really stock up on snacks, as I'm trying to watch what I eat and not snack too much. However I do have some grapes in the fridge! And I have some tapioca pudding I may get to!</span><br />4) Tell us a little something about yourself! <span style="color: red;">I'm a divorced woman working in the tech industry. I share my home with a passel of animals: Three dogs Tiki (13 year old Coton du Tulear), Zook (6 1/2 year old Chihuahua), and Roo (1 1/2 year old mix breed that DNA testing shows is mostly Chihuahua, Cattle Dog, and Chow), and five cats Momma (14 years), her son Simon (12 years), Shotsie (10 years), Izzy (2 years) and Gilly/Jellybean (1 year).</span><br />5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? <span style="color: red;">Nothing. I always just endeavor to do more book-related stuff: read, blog, write reviews about recently read books, etc.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">And with that, my friends, let's get to it! Enjoy!</span> </span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-25324933607184722942017-04-17T16:11:00.000-04:002017-04-17T16:11:08.043-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474482950l/31139037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474482950l/31139037.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><b><i>Synopsis</i></b><br /><i><br /></i><i><span id="freeText4280536993675662979">The endgame is at hand for Penn Cage, his family, and the enemies bent on destroying them in this revelatory volume in the epic trilogy set in modern-day Natchez, Mississippi—Greg Iles’s epic tale of love and honor, hatred and revenge that explores how the sins of the past continue to haunt the present.</span></i><br /><i><span id="freeText4280536993675662979"></span></i><br /><i>Shattered by grief and dreaming of vengeance, Penn Cage sees his family and his world collapsing around him. The woman he loves is gone, his principles have been irrevocably compromised, and his father, once a paragon of the community that Penn leads as mayor, is about to be tried for the murder of a former lover. Most terrifying of all, Dr. Cage seems bent on self-destruction. Despite Penn's experience as a prosecutor in major murder trials, his father has frozen him out of the trial preparations--preferring to risk dying in prison to revealing the truth of the crime to his son.</i><br /><br /><i>During forty years practicing medicine, Tom Cage made himself the most respected and beloved physician in Natchez, Mississippi. But this revered Southern figure has secrets known only to himself and a handful of others. Among them, Tom has a second son, the product of an 1960s affair with his devoted African American nurse, Viola Turner. It is Viola who has been murdered, and her bitter son--Penn's half-brother--who sets in motion the murder case against his father. The resulting investigation exhumes dangerous ghosts from Mississippi's violent past. In some way that Penn cannot fathom, Viola Turner was a nexus point between his father and the Double Eagles, a savage splinter cell of the KKK. More troubling still, the long-buried secrets shared by Dr. Cage and the former Klansmen may hold the key to the most devastating assassinations of the 1960s. The surviving Double Eagles will stop at nothing to keep their past crimes buried, and with the help of some of the most influential men in the state, they seek to ensure that Dr. Cage either takes the fall for them, or takes his secrets to an early grave.</i><br /><br /><i>Tom Cage's murder trial sets a terrible clock in motion, and unless Penn can pierce the veil of the past and exonerate his father, his family will be destroyed. Unable to trust anyone around him--not even his own mother--Penn joins forces with Serenity Butler, a famous young black author who has come to Natchez to write about his father's case. Together, Penn and Serenity--a former soldier--battle to crack the Double Eagles and discover the secret history of the Cage family and the South itself, a desperate move that risks the only thing they have left to gamble: their lives.</i><br /><br /><i><b>Mississippi Blood</b> is the enthralling conclusion to a breathtaking trilogy seven years in the making--one that has kept readers on the edge of their seats. With piercing insight, narrative prowess, and a masterful ability to blend history and imagination, <b>New York Times</b> bestselling author Greg Iles illuminates the brutal history of the American South in a highly atmospheric and suspenseful novel that delivers the shocking resolution his fans have eagerly awaited.</i><br /><br /><div class="row"><span itemprop="bookFormatType">Paperback</span>, <span itemprop="numberOfPages">704 pages</span></div><div class="row">Published March 21st 2017 by William Morrow </div><div class="clearFloats"><div class="infoBoxRowItem">ISBN 0062642618 <span class="greyText">(ISBN13: <span itemprop="isbn">9780062642615</span>)</span></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><br /><i><b><span class="greyText">About the Author</span></b></i></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-53XQ-0cxg_4/WO-Q5zM_pvI/AAAAAAAAG2I/1yy9tsSmhJsPFHX09MiDDXfXcqCBFKVDwCLcB/s1600/Greg%2BIles%2BAP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-53XQ-0cxg_4/WO-Q5zM_pvI/AAAAAAAAG2I/1yy9tsSmhJsPFHX09MiDDXfXcqCBFKVDwCLcB/s200/Greg%2BIles%2BAP.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText"><i>Greg Iles spent most of his youth in Natchez, Mississippi. His first novel, <b>Spandau Phoenix</b>, was the first of thirteen New York Times bestsellers, and his new trilogy continues the story of Penn Cage, protagonist of <b>The Quiet Game</b>, <b>Turning Angel</b>, and #1 <b>New York Times</b> bestseller <b>The Devil’s Punchbowl</b>. Iles’s novels have been made into films and published in more than thirty-five countries. He lives in Natchez with his wife and has two children.</i></span><br /><br /><span class="greyText">Check out the author's <a href="http://www.gregiles.com/">website</a></span></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">Follow the author on <a href="https://twitter.com/GregIles">Twitter</a></span></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">Connect with the author on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GregIlesAuthor">Facebook</a>&nbsp;</span></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"></div><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><br /><br /><br /><i><b><span class="greyText">My Thoughts</span></b></i></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="infoBoxRowItem"><span class="greyText">Grief is the most solitary emotion; it makes islands of us all..</span> </div></blockquote></div>This is the final book in the <i>Natchez Burning</i> trilogy of the Penn Cage series. This series has covered the investigation into the actions of a white supremacist group in Mississippi called the Double Eagles. The trilogy started in <i>Natchez Burning</i> with the father of Penn Cage, Dr. Tom Cage, charged with the murder of his former nurse Viola Turner. In the process of investigating his father's case, Penn is dragged into the past and a torrent of ugly events involving the Double Eagles going as high up as the Kennedy assassination. In <i>The Bone Tree</i>, the story continued with Henry Sexton leading the investigation into the Double Eagles, and now in <i>Mississippi Blood</i> we sit in on the trial of Dr. Tom Cage as we learn more of the past.<br /><br />I have really loved this trilogy, and Greg Iles has become an author that I trust. He can craft a great story, and knows how to build tension. He brings his characters to life and welcomes you into their story. You can feel the sticky heat of the south, smell the rich earth, hear the frogs croaking in the swamp, and see the "Old South" in your mind.<br /><br />Penn Cage is a former prosecutor and current mayor of Natchez, Mississippi. His father has been the beloved town physician, well-respected among the black community for decades as a man who has always treated them with respect and compassion, understanding their plight as a person with dark skin in a southern town steeped deep in racism. The doctor has been charged with the death of his former nurse, a black woman whom he once had a brief affair decades earlier when such a relationship could bring a death sentence. A woman who has her own intimate history with the Double Eagles.<br /><br />Penn's father is assisted by old family friend Quentin Avery, who is a well-respected attorney living in the shadow of the man he used to be, now confined to a wheelchair due to diabetes. And there is the unexpected inclusion of writer and ex-soldier Serenity Butler, who is interested in the story of the Cage family and that of Viola Turner.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2017/03/greg-iles-author-of-mississippi-blood-on-tour-marchapril-2017/">website</a> for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Tuesday, March 21st: <a href="http://nomoregrumpybookseller.blogspot.com/2017/03/mississippi-blood-by-greg-iles.html">No More Grumpy Bookseller</a><br />Wednesday, March 22nd: <a href="https://mamareadsblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/22/happy-release-week-to-mississippiblood-the-immersive-and-gripping-conclusion-of-the-natchezburning-trilogy-by-gregiles-review-giveaway-exclusive/">Mama Reads Hazel Sleeps</a><br />Friday, March 24th: <a href="http://insatiablereaders.blogspot.com/2017/03/blog-tour-mississippi-blood-by-greg-iles.html">Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers</a><br />Monday, March 27th: <a href="http://dreams-etc.com/book-tour-mississippi-blood-greg-iles/">Dreams, Etc.</a><br />Tuesday, March 28th: <a href="http://booksaremything.blogspot.com/2017/03/tlc-book-tour-mississippi-blood.html">Tina Says…</a><br />Wednesday, March 29th: <a href="http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/03/mississippi-blood.html">she treads softly</a><br />Thursday, March 30th: <a href="http://www.hopelessbibliophile.com/2017/03/book-review-mississippi-blood-penn-cage.html">Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile</a><br />Friday, March 31st: <a href="http://www.ricki-treleaven.com/2017/03/literary-friday-mississippi-blood.html">Art @ Home</a><br />Monday, April 3rd: <a href="http://joyfullyretired.com/2017/04/02/an-exciting-new-book-on-tour-mississippi-blood-by-greg-iles/">Joyfully Retired</a><br />Tuesday, April 4th: <a href="http://bewitchedbookworms.com/2017/04/mississippi-blood-by-greg-iles-review-and-giveaway.html">Bewitched Bookworms</a><br />Wednesday, April 5th: <a href="http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/04/review-mississippi-blood-greg-iles/">Literary Quicksand</a><br />Thursday, April 6th: <a href="http://patriciaswisdom.com/2017/04/mississippi-blood-a-novel-3-of-the-natchez-burning-trilogy-greg-iles/">Patricia’s Wisdom</a><br />Monday, April 10th: <a href="http://litandlife.blogspot.com/">Lit and Life</a><br />Tuesday, April 11th: <a href="http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/">A Bookworm’s World</a><br />Wednesday, April 12th: <a href="http://abookishwayoflife.blogspot.com/">A Bookish Way of Life</a><br />Thursday, April 13th: <a href="http://www.thebookdivasreads.com/">The Book Diva’s Reads</a><br />Friday, April 14th: <a href="http://aceandhoserblook.blogspot.com/">Ace and Hoser Blook</a><br />Monday, April 17th: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br />Tuesday, April 18th: <a href="http://bibliophiliac-bibliophiliac.blogspot.com/">Bibliophiliac</a><br /><br /><i><b>My final word: </b></i>Loved it! Iles is masterful in his use of suspense. I find my anticipations pulled taut as I wait to see what will happen next. The characters are so well-defined, the story descriptive without being flowery or heavy with description. Iles simply tells a "great yarn" that feels also like a history lesson exposing an ugly past. This final book in the <i>Natchez Burning</i> trilogy does a great job of bringing the trilogy to completion, and was just as enjoyable and satisfying as the first two. If you like mystery and suspense, I strongly and exuberantly urge you to this author a try!<br /><br /><b><i>Buy Now:</i></b><br /><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062311153/mississippi-blood">HarperCollins</a><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mississippi-blood-greg-iles/1123951144?ean=9780062311153">Barnes &amp; Noble</a><br /><a href="http://amzn.to/2mW61jR">Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/search/book?searchfor=mississippi+blood">Indiebound</a> <br /><br /><i><b>Rating:</b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zeIT1WvW4m0/WPE5VmqA8xI/AAAAAAAAG2Y/14_Ijk1lpo8SJo3094zkmMRksJIS4Bp9gCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zeIT1WvW4m0/WPE5VmqA8xI/AAAAAAAAG2Y/14_Ijk1lpo8SJo3094zkmMRksJIS4Bp9gCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The book that I received was an uncorrected proof, and quotes could differ from the final release. &nbsp;</i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-86587976474468560322017-04-13T09:05:00.000-04:002017-04-13T09:05:05.819-04:00Introducing... Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles<i>Introducing books by the first chapter or so...</i><br /><br />Grief is the most solitary emotion; it makes islands of us all.<br /><br />I've spent a lot of time visiting graves over the past few weeks. Some times with Annie, but mostly alone. The people who see me there give me a wide berth. I'm not sure why. For thirty miles around, almost everyone knows me. Penn Cage, the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi. When they avoid me as they do-- waving from a distance, if at all, then hurrying on their way-- I sometimes wonder if I have taken on the mantle of death. Jewel Washington, the county coroner and a true friend, pulled me aside in City Hall last week and told me I look like living proof that ghosts exist. Maybe they do. Since Caitlin died, I have felt nothing more than the ghost of myself.<br /><br />Perhaps that's why I spend so much time visiting graves.<br /><br /><i><b>-- Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles</b></i>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-16569961571730413212017-03-31T14:57:00.001-04:002017-03-31T14:58:29.578-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: Epic Measures by Jeremy N. Smith<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413132846l/22693187.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413132846l/22693187.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><i><b>Synopsis</b></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText5206008796339524528"><b><i>Moneyball</i> </b>meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time—the groundbreaking program to answer the most essential question for humanity: how do we live and die?—and the visionary mastermind behind it.<br /><br />Medical doctor and economist Christopher Murray began the Global Burden of Disease studies to gain a truer understanding of how we live and how we die. While it is one of the largest scientific projects ever attempted—as breathtaking as the first moon landing or the Human Genome Project—the questions it answers are meaningful for every one of us: What are the world’s health problems? Who do they hurt? How much? Where? Why?<br /><br />Murray argues that the ideal existence isn’t simply the longest but the one lived well and with the least illness. Until we can accurately measure how people live and die, we cannot understand what makes us sick or do much to improve it. Challenging the accepted wisdom of the WHO and the UN, the charismatic and controversial health maverick has made enemies—and some influential friends, including Bill Gates who gave Murray a $100 million grant.<br /><br />In <b><i>Epic Measures</i></b>, journalist Jeremy N. Smith offers an intimate look at Murray and his groundbreaking work. From ranking countries’ healthcare systems (the U.S. is 37th) to unearthing the shocking reality that world governments are funding developing countries at only 30% of the potential maximum efficiency when it comes to health, <b><i>Epic Measures</i></b> introduces a visionary leader whose unwavering determination to improve global health standards has already changed the way the world addresses issues of health and wellness, sets policy, and distributes funding.</span></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText5206008796339524528">Hardcover, 352 pages<br />Published April 7th 2015 by Harper Wave<br />ISBN 0062237500 (ISBN13: 9780062237507)</span></i><br /><br /><br /><b><i><span id="freeText5206008796339524528">About the Author</span></i></b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C1e99hvhhCA/WNpzBuDdjlI/AAAAAAAAG04/QyMohmfgPdQFo405xTVrzd3cywcToKYkgCLcB/s1600/Jeremy%2BN%2BSmith%2BAP%2BPhoto%2Bcredit%2BCrackle%2BBingham.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C1e99hvhhCA/WNpzBuDdjlI/AAAAAAAAG04/QyMohmfgPdQFo405xTVrzd3cywcToKYkgCLcB/s200/Jeremy%2BN%2BSmith%2BAP%2BPhoto%2Bcredit%2BCrackle%2BBingham.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><i><span id="freeText5206008796339524528">Jeremy N. Smith has written for Discover, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Chicago Tribune, among many other publications. His first book, Growing a Garden City, was one of Booklist's top ten books on the environment for 2011. Born and raised in Evanston, Illinois, he is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Montana. He lives in Missoula, Montana, with his wife and young daughter.</span></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText5206008796339524528">Check out the author's <a href="http://www.jeremynsmith.com/Jeremy_N._Smith/Home.html">website</a></span></i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b><i><span id="freeText5206008796339524528">My Thoughts</span></i></b><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">If we want to improve how we live as well as how we die, we need to know the full measure of our diseases and disabilities-- what doesn't kill us as well as what does.</blockquote>Dr. Christopher Murray had an unusual upbringing. At 10 years of age, he was living in Diffa, Niger where his missionary parents were running a clinic. Chris and his sister Megan and brother Nigel were all put to work at the clinic, where 10-year-old Chris found himself working as pharmacist and errand boy.<br /><br />While there, the family made the discovery that the malnourished seemed almost entirely free of "malaria and common viral illnesses", yet days after being given food and medicine these same people would become horribly ill from those same illnesses they appeared free of just days before. The family theorized that the virus was as dependent on iron as humans, and the fact that these malnourished people had anemia left the virus starved and spent. Once they were on a healthy diet, including iron, the virus thrived. So food and vitamins could kill these people, if the virus was left untreated!<br /><br />The family (minus young Chris, who was too young to have participated in the study) published an article about their findings in <i>The Lancet</i> on March 22, 1975.<br /><br />It was experiences like this that led Chris Murray to conclude:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Conventional wisdom can kill.</blockquote>Murray went on to attend Harvard in 1980, and was chosen as a Rhodes scholar his senior year. It was while on tour of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1985 that he found himself awed by the same organization he would one day challenge. Murray would later introduce himself to Alan Lopez of WHO and tell him that "...everything you've written about mortality in Africa is wrong". Murray and Lopez would go on to become friends and co-founders of the Global Burden of Disease Study, which would turn the world of epidemiology on its head.<br /><br />The author first met Chris Murray in 2012, and he describes him as "blunt, often abrasive, hyperenergetic, supremely confident, yet fiercely collaborative", and overall just plain fascinating. He notes that Murray was argumentative and loved an open dialogue; "the push and pull of other people's ideas and willing to listen to any serious proposition, no matter the source".<br /><br />Many others entered Murray's orbit and played a part in the change that came about in the world of epidemiology and continues to this day. One of those people is Bill Gates, who was impressed with Chris Murray's vision and funded the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation with $105 million in 2007.<br /><br />I could go on and on. Chris Murray is my new imaginary boyfriend. What he does with "Big Data" makes me weak in the knees. He was behind the creation of the GBDx, which was a software platform for compiling, organizing and displaying all of the data regarding the health of the world. They can click on a country and instantly see a visual representation of all of the conditions and diseases impacting the health of the people of that country, This is exactly the type of thing I would do, if I had Murray's skills! My brain naturally wants to organize data in this manner and make sense of it. This is the type of project that I would find "fun".<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours and HarperCollins for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2017/03/jeremy-n-smith-author-of-epic-measures-on-tour-marchapril-2017/">website</a> for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Tuesday, March 28th: <a href="http://litandlife.blogspot.com/">Lit and Life</a><br />Thursday, March 30th: <a href="http://bookchickdi.blogspot.com/">bookchickdi</a><br />Friday, March 31st: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br />Tuesday, April 4th: <a href="http://sapphire-love.blogspot.com/">Sapphire Ng</a><br />Wednesday, April 5th: <a href="http://readaholiczone.blogspot.com/">Readaholic Zone</a><br />Thursday, April 6th: <a href="http://manoflabook.com/wp/">Man of La Book</a><br />Monday, April 10th: <a href="http://doingdeweydecimal.com/">Doing Dewey</a><br />Tuesday, April 11th: <a href="http://www.spiritblog.net/">Based on a True Story</a><br />Wednesday, April 12th: <a href="http://kissinbluekaren.com/">Kissin Blue Karen</a><br />Friday, April 14th: <a href="http://ireadtilldawn.blogspot.com/">Read Till Dawn</a><br />Friday, April 14th: <a href="http://jathanandheather.com/">Jathan &amp; Heather</a><br /><br /><br /><i><b>My final word:</b></i> I was concerned going into this that I would find this book and/or the material boring. No worries! I loved this book! I think Chris Murray is a fascinating character. He has a brilliant mind, and a knack for seeing (and convincing others) that spending some money on world health can save the world billions in the long run. Unhealthy people are a drag on society, and healthcare for all should be a priority!<br /><br />The author does a great job of making this information readable. Knowing how ornery Murray can be only makes him more human to me. The author takes what could have been a very dry and boring read full of data and turns it into what almost feels like a thriller as you follow along with Murray's endeavors. Especially fitting for this day and age, I strongly suggest everyone read this one. It brings forth an important message-- and my imaginary boyfriend is fantastic in it!<br /><br /><i><b>Buy Now:</b></i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062237507/epic-measures">HarperCollins</a><br /><a href="http://amzn.to/2niba6g">Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/epic-measures-jeremy-n-smith/1119950885?ean=9780062237514">Barnes and Noble</a><br /><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/search/book?searchfor=epic+measures">IndieBound</a><br /><br /><i><b>My Rating:</b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rLMmIPbdAzI/WN6jZwWeNfI/AAAAAAAAG1c/z2VZ9WXkHEgr4NLZVHzpMe9XYSCGLkuzgCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rLMmIPbdAzI/WN6jZwWeNfI/AAAAAAAAG1c/z2VZ9WXkHEgr4NLZVHzpMe9XYSCGLkuzgCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. </i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-29652981412469867942017-03-17T11:35:00.003-04:002017-03-31T14:58:43.966-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: Dishing Up the Dirt by Andrea Bermis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><i><b><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5xm1haI8k0E/WMmFMqN960I/AAAAAAAAGzY/dqLru86vVcAP0VPxJZiIHkZ80GNFpMs0QCLcB/s1600/Dishing%2BUp%2Bthe%2BDirt.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5xm1haI8k0E/WMmFMqN960I/AAAAAAAAGzY/dqLru86vVcAP0VPxJZiIHkZ80GNFpMs0QCLcB/s200/Dishing%2BUp%2Bthe%2BDirt.png" width="160" /></a>Synopsis</b></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText4092325735501556324">Andrea Bemis, the creator of the popular farm-to-table blog <b><i>Dishing Up the Dirt</i></b> builds on her success with this beautiful, simple, seasonally driven cookbook, featuring more than 100 inventive and delicious whole-foods recipes and dozens of color photographs.<br /><br />For Andrea Bemis, who owns and runs a six-acre organic farm with her husband outside of Portland, Oregon, dinners are inspired by what is grown in the soil and picked by hand. In <i><b>Dishing Up the Dirt</b>,</i> Andrea offers 100 authentic farm-to-table recipes, arranged by season, including:<br /><br /><b>Spring</b>: Honey Roasted Strawberry Muffins, Lamb Lettuce Wraps with Mint Yogurt Sauce, Spring Harvest Pizza with Mint &amp; Pea Pesto, Kohlrabi and Chickpea Salad<br /><br /><b>Summer:&nbsp;</b>Blueberry Lemon Ricotta Biscuits, Roasted Ratatouille Toast, Kohlrabi Fritters with Garlic Herb Cashew Cream Sauce, Farmers Market Burgers with Mustard Greens Pesto<br /><br /><b>Fall:&nbsp;</b>Farm Girl Veggie Bowls, Butternut Molasses Muffins, Early Autumn Moroccan Stew, Collard Green Slaw with Bacon Gremolata<br /><br /><b>Winter: </b>Rutabaga Home Fries with Smokey Cashew Sauce, Hoisin Glazed Brussels Sprouts, Country Girl Old Fashioned Cocktails, Tumbleweed Farm Winter Panzanella<br /><br />Andrea’s recipes focus on using whole, locally-sourced foods—incorporating the philosophy of eating as close to the land as possible. While many recipes are naturally gluten-free, dairy-free, or vegetarian, many others include elemental ingredients like bread, cheese, eggs, meat, and sweeteners, which are incorporated in new and inventive ways.<br /><br />In short essays throughout the book, Andrea also presents an honest glimpse of life on Tumbleweed Farm—the real life of a farmer, not the shabby-chic fantasy often portrayed—offering fascinating and frequently entertaining details about where the food on our dinner tables comes from. With stunning food photography as well as intimate portraits of farm life, <b><i>Dishing Up the Dirt</i></b> allows anyone to be a seasonal foodie and an armchair farmer.</span></i><br /><br />Hardcover, 304 pages<br />Published March 14th 2017 by Harper Wave<br />ISBN 0062492225 (ISBN13: 9780062492227)<br /><br /><br /><i><b>About the Author</b></i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k5nfWeSkDkE/WMmFEhvK0mI/AAAAAAAAGzc/mAZZj8OW0lcfktzr2OjZ9jVMBkTp_4NdwCEw/s1600/Andrea%2BBemis%2BAP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k5nfWeSkDkE/WMmFEhvK0mI/AAAAAAAAGzc/mAZZj8OW0lcfktzr2OjZ9jVMBkTp_4NdwCEw/s200/Andrea%2BBemis%2BAP.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><i>Andrea is the writer, recipe developer, and photographer behind the food blog DishingUp TheDirt.com. Her recipes and Tumbleweed Farm have been featured in publications such as the <b>New York Times</b>, <b>Well and Good NYC</b>, and <b>Eating Well Magazine</b>. She lives on her farm in Oregon with her husband and dog.</i><br /><br /><i>Follow the author on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/andreabemis/">Instagram</a></i><br /><i>Friend the author on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AFarmerInTheDell/">Facebook</a></i><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><i><b>My Thoughts</b></i><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">I've learned many lessons in the seven years since my life took a radical turn for the dirt. I'm physically capable of doing tasks that I would never have dreamed I could do in my prefarming life. I now organize an entire calendar year between the first and last predicated frosts of the season. I know community is everything. Food is medicine. And most important, cocktail hour should never be passed up after a long and hard day of work.</blockquote>Author Andrea Bermis lives with her husband Taylor on a six-acre farm named Tumbleweed Farm located outside the town of Parkdale, population 266. While living in Oregon in 2008, they made the unexpected decision to move to Taylor's family farm in Massachusetts to learn how to live the lives of farmers. After several years of hard, back-breaking but satisfying farm work, the author and her husband could deny their longing for the west coast no longer, and they moved back to Oregon to start their own farm from the ground up.<br /><br />The recipes in this book utilize fresh local grown ingredients and are organized by season, so you get them at their freshest. The author begins with a brief introduction before shifting the book to seasons.<br /><br />Each seasonal chapter begins with a description of life on the farm during that season. Spring is hectic and full of anxiety as they rush to get seedlings into the ground and nurse them through damaging weather and protect them from foraging wildlife, and raise and rotate chickens and harvest their eggs. This chapter leads into recipes utilizing springtime ingredients like strawberries, various lettuces and herbs, radishes and beans and eggs.<br /><br />Summer on the farm is a time of teeming life and prayers for rain. Lots and lots of time is spent weeding to produce healthy plants without pesticides.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">This is our life all summer long. Weed. Water. Harvest. Weed. Water. Harvest. Rinse and repeat.</blockquote>And Tuesdays in the summer brings CSA boxes that must be packed and delivered to their members who love the fresh and organic produce delivered straight from the farm. And summer evenings consist of enjoying the sunset with a beer and a view of the crops, followed by dinner on the deck by candlelight. Dinner might include dishes like <i>Crispy Smashed Potatoes with Herbed Yogurt, Corn Salad with Walnuts and Feta, </i>or <i>Summer Squash and Corn Pasta with Garlic Tahini Sauce.</i><br /><br />Autumn channels in the beginning of the cooler weather. Autumn is about "reaping the rewards of the last several months of tireless work". This is when the root vegetables like potatoes and carrots and turnips are dug up for delivery or storage. Gone are the frenetic days of spring and summer, and this is the season to start to sit back and enjoy all of their hard work. The author and her husband host a "thank you" party at their farm for their CSA members who put their faith in the them each year that they will produce food for all of them to enjoy the following year. Then there comes the preserving of food-- pickles, jams, vegetables, pesto. Winter projects are planned, and winter recipes include ingredients like beets, peppers, carrots, mushrooms and all sorts of squash.<br /><br />Winter is a time of dormancy. The fields and greenhouse are barren and hibernating for the winter, the stores and freezers are packed with food to get the couple through the winter. The biggest concerns are winter storms and warm chickens. It's a time to make plans and purchase supplies of seeds, fertilizers and soil for the coming season. And cold winter nights are spent filling up on hearty meals like <i>Tumbleweed Farm Winter Panzanella, Venison Stew, Spiced Winter Porridge, and Roasted Chicken Thighs with Root Vegetables.</i><br /><br />I'll admit that the recipes in this book didn't really "grab" me. They are more rustic than I'm use finding in a lot of the cookbooks I get, or they have ingredients that are somewhat foreign to me, so I just couldn't get really excited with the flavor the recipe held in store. However I decided to try the recipe for <i>Chicken and Chickpea Pesto Summer Salad. </i>Yes, I know this book is organized seasonally, but I live in Florida where we have no seasons! So summer cooking is fine in the middle of winter!<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YjqwZec70V4/WMv5g3JDSpI/AAAAAAAAGz0/lHDU3Pd5NFQYI-5MA-AG9oYETD0Oxr3TwCLcB/s1600/IMAG6694.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YjqwZec70V4/WMv5g3JDSpI/AAAAAAAAGz0/lHDU3Pd5NFQYI-5MA-AG9oYETD0Oxr3TwCLcB/s320/IMAG6694.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />And may I just say that I was pleasantly surprised with how refreshing this salad was? Full of shredded poached chicken and chickpeas, thinly-sliced cucumbers, radishes and celery, tossed with pesto and topped with parmesan, it was full of flavor! I'm sure it will be even better tonight after the flavors have had time to meld. I admit that I cheated and used jarred pesto, so it could probably be even better with homemade, but I was still duly impressed!<br /><br />I also made a batch of Farmer's Candy, which are oven-dried cherry tomatoes (like sun-dried tomatoes, but better!)<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OZP5VwSv1Pk/WMv6o4G9sFI/AAAAAAAAG0A/kKSMrF4tm3g9NHF2WP7LnyiGAGz-9cRcwCLcB/s1600/IMAG6696.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OZP5VwSv1Pk/WMv6o4G9sFI/AAAAAAAAG0A/kKSMrF4tm3g9NHF2WP7LnyiGAGz-9cRcwCLcB/s320/IMAG6696.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The author suggests "If you can resist eating them in one sitting, try adding them to pasta and eggs, or top your morning toast with goat cheese and a small handful of these guys". I've stored a batch in the freezer for use over the next few months.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours and HarperCollins for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2017/03/andrea-bemis-author-of-dishing-up-the-dirt-on-tour-march-2017/">website</a> for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Tuesday, March 14th: <a href="http://nomoregrumpybookseller.blogspot.com/">No More Grumpy Bookseller</a><br />Wednesday, March 15th: <a href="http://justcommonly.blogspot.com/">Just Commonly</a><br />Thursday, March 16th: <a href="http://msbookish.com/">Ms.Bookish.com</a><br />Friday, March 17th: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br />Friday, March 17th: <a href="http://undermyappletree.net/">Under My Apple Tree</a><br />Monday, March 20th: <a href="http://wall-to-wall-books.blogspot.com/">Wall-to-Wall Books</a><br />Tuesday, March 21st: <a href="http://redheadwithbook.com/">#redhead.with.book</a><br />Wednesday, March 22nd: <a href="http://www.sidewalkshoes.com/">Sidewalk Shoes</a><br />Friday, March 24th: <a href="http://www.create-with-joy.com/">Create With Joy</a><br />Monday, March 27th: <a href="http://www.brokenteepee.com/">Broken Teepee</a><br />Tuesday, March 28th: <a href="http://gjackswrites.com/blogging/">G. Jacks Writes</a><br />Wednesday, March 29th: <a href="http://www.luxuryreading.com/">Luxury Reading</a><br />Thursday, March 30th: <a href="http://www.literaryquicksand.com/">Literary Quicksand</a><br />Friday, March 31st: <a href="http://libraryofcleanreads.blogspot.com/">Library of Clean Reads</a><br /><br /><br /><i><b>My final word: </b></i>I must admit that when I first got this book, I wasn't initially impressed from the outset. The actual structure of the book reminds me a bit of a school textbook, so it left me feeling that I was about to have to do my homework or something equally unpleasant. However once I dived in I was pleasantly surprised at how charming this book actually is. It's down-home and genuine and honest, and the recipes are rustic seasonal recipes for the way I <i>should</i> be cooking. The recipes, like the author, are honest and bared for all to see. <br /><br />This is a really lovely cookbook. I just wish it didn't resemble a textbook so much. I fear that it could cause it to be overlooked, when it deserves to recognized for what it is: A beautiful love story about the love shared by the author and her husband, and the hard yet fulfilling farm life that they've chosen to live together. <br /><br />And it reminded me that I really need to grow some radishes again.<br /><br /><br /><i><b>Buy Now:&nbsp;</b></i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062492227/dishing-up-the-dirt#">HarperCollins</a><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dishing-up-the-dirt-andrea-bemis/1123951272?ean=9780062492227">Barnes and Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dishing-Up-Dirt-Recipes-Cooking/dp/0062492225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1489610487&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=dishing+up+the+dirt">Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/search/book?searchfor=dishing+up+the+dirt">IndieBound</a><br /><br /><i><b>My Rating:</b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ovM6MnfR-jQ/WMv_ycMzZDI/AAAAAAAAG0Q/83MXKe_Jd-o55_rAQIgU9RQrTRrBSZsKQCLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ovM6MnfR-jQ/WMv_ycMzZDI/AAAAAAAAG0Q/83MXKe_Jd-o55_rAQIgU9RQrTRrBSZsKQCLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. </i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-15474012114399131042017-02-24T20:09:00.000-05:002017-02-24T20:09:00.569-05:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: The Drifter by Christine Lennon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480371375l/30319967.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480371375l/30319967.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><i><b>Synopsis</b></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText9541006893074041957">Megan Abbott meets M.O. Walsh in Christine Lennon's compelling debut novel about a group of friends on the cusp of graduating from college when their lives are irrevocably changed by a brutal act of violence.<br /><br /><b><i>Present Day…</i></b><br /><br />For two decades, Elizabeth has tried to escape the ghosts of her past…tried to erase the painful memories…tried to keep out the terrifying nightmares. But twenty years after graduating from the University of Florida, her carefully curated life begins to unravel, forcing her to confront the past she’s tried so hard to forget.<br /><br /><b><i>1990s, Gainesville, Florida…</i></b><br /><br />Elizabeth and her two closest friends, Caroline and Ginny, are having the time of their lives in college—binge watching <b><i>Oprah</i></b>, flirting for freebies from Taco Bell, and breaking hearts along the way. But without warning, their world is suddenly shattered when a series of horrific acts of violence ravage the campus, changing their lives forever.<br /><br />Sweeping readers from the exclusive corners of sorority life in the South to the frontlines of the drug-fueled, slacker culture in Manhattan in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, when Elizabeth is forced to acknowledge her role in the death of a friend in order to mend a broken friendship and save her own life, <b><i>The Drifter</i></b> is an unforgettable story about the complexities of friendships and the secrets that can ultimately destroy us.</span></i><br /><br />Paperback, 384 pages<br />Published February 14th 2017 by William Morrow Paperbacks<br />ISBN 0062457578 (ISBN13: 9780062457578)<br /><br /><i><b>About the Author</b></i><br />(from the back cover)<br /><br /><i>Christine Lennon is a Los Angeles-based writer. Before she moved to the West Coast and started her freelance career, she was an editor at <b>W</b>, <b>Vogue</b>, and <b>Harper's Bazaar</b>. Since then, she has written for publications including <b>The New York Times Style Magazine</b>, the <b>Wall Street Journal</b>, <b>Town &amp; Country</b>, <b>W</b>, <b>Vogue</b>, <b>Harper's Bazaar</b>, <b>Martha Stewart Living</b>, <b>Sunset</b>, <b>California Style</b>, <b>Marie Claire</b>, <b>Self</b>, Net-a-Porter's <b>Porter</b>, and <b>The Edit</b> online magazine-- among others. Christine lives in California with her husband, Andrew Reich, and their twins. <b>The Drifter</b> is her first book.</i><br /><br /><br /><i><b>My Thoughts</b></i><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">From her perch on the brownstone stoop, Elizabeth lifts up her sunglasses, runs her ring finger along her lower lashes to flick away the welling tears, and glances at her phone to check the time.</blockquote>Betsy is a smart girl who tries to hide her intelligence. While her friend Ginny is a charming bright light that no person can resist, Betsy seems to do all she can to go through life unnoticed and to be as unremarkable as possible. And where Ginny is a bright light, their friend Caroline is darkness-- moody, self-centered and oftentimes unkind.<br /><br />These three friends are students at the University of Florida during the summer of 1990 when a serial killer sets everyone on edge. After graduation Elizabeth runs off to start a new life in New York with her boyfriend, but she can't escape the nightmares of her past.<br /><br />This book came along at just the right time. I've been in a bit of a reading slump for a few months, finding it hard to get excited about reading anything, and constantly distracted. This book was a bit of fresh air to clean my reading palate and hopefully get me recommitted once again. <br /><br />I enjoyed the author’s debut novel. She has an easy-to-read writing style, and good character development. I don’t know whether any of the characters were really “mysteries” to me. The author left me feeling as if I knew the them. While Betsy was likable enough, I think that her boyfriend/husband Gavin was probably my favorite. Sweet and unassuming and very accommodating and understanding, he is the ultimate mate or friend.<br /><br />I liked how easy this story was to read, as my brain isn't wanting to be challenged right now. I just want to enjoy an easy read and not have to struggle with symbolism, metaphors and big vocabulary words. Plus a good portion of the story took place in my home state of Florida, so I felt at home in the story.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour, and to <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062457578/the-drifter">HarperCollins</a> for the opportunity to read this debut novel. Check out the TLC Book Tour <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2017/02/christine-lennon-author-of-the-drifter-on-tour-februarymarch-2017/">website </a>for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Tuesday, February 21st: <a href="http://nomoregrumpybookseller.blogspot.com/">No More Grumpy Bookseller</a><br /> Wednesday, February 22nd: <a href="http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/">she treads softly</a><br /> Thursday, February 23rd: <a href="http://bewitchedbookworms.com/">Bewitched Bookworms</a><br /> Friday, February 24th: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br /> Monday, February 27th: <a href="http://www.stephthebookworm.blogspot.com/">StephTheBookworm</a><br /> Tuesday, February 28th: <a href="http://www.booksaremything.blogspot.com/">Tina Says…</a><br /> Wednesday, March 1st: <a href="http://abookishwayoflife.blogspot.com/">A Bookish Way of Life</a><br /> Thursday, March 2nd: <a href="http://msnoseinabook.com/">Ms. Nose in a Book</a><br /> Monday, March 6th: <a href="http://gjackswrites.com/blogging/">G. Jacks Writes</a><br /> Monday, March 6th: <a href="http://www.writeoncindy.wordpress.com/">Thoughts On This ‘n That</a><br /> Thursday, March 9th: <a href="http://samsbookblog.blogspot.com/">Booked on a Feeling</a> <br /><br /><i><b>My final word:</b></i> Sometimes I was left a little confused over what this story wanted to be: a coming-of-age story about a rootless young woman finding her place in the world, or a murder mystery "whodunit". However it didn't really bother me too much. I was engaged and it kept me wanting to read on, which is the most difficult thing with someone like me who is so easily distracted. The story could be a little light and at times "flimsy" in its structure, confused and sometimes read a bit like a young adult novel. However overall I did really enjoy it, and I would definitely read this author again. I think this would make a great summer beach read, for those dreaming of warmer days ahead!<br /><br /><i><b>Buy Now:</b></i><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062457578/the-drifter">HarperCollins</a><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-drifter-christine-lennon/1123897699?ean=9780062457578">Barnes and Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Drifter-Novel-Christine-Lennon/dp/0062457578/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1487269463&amp;sr=8-2">Amazon </a><br /><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062457578">IndieBound</a><br /><br /><i><b>My Rating:</b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mgFvpvkrS7Q/WLDW8otgFvI/AAAAAAAAGyE/uZKYFzugKkU-YF5YUCXW9RHXVTFfAansgCLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mgFvpvkrS7Q/WLDW8otgFvI/AAAAAAAAGyE/uZKYFzugKkU-YF5YUCXW9RHXVTFfAansgCLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and <span style="font-family: inherit;">HarperCollins</span>, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The book that I received was an uncorrected proof, and quotes could differ from the final release. &nbsp;</i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-50442918690953596852017-02-10T10:15:00.000-05:002017-02-10T10:51:33.233-05:00ON MY RADAR (02-10-17 edition): Books that have hit my radar...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/HurricaneAndrewFLRADAR.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/HurricaneAndrewFLRADAR.png" width="200" /></a></div>Here are some books that have recently hit my radar and set off my alarm bells...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464994916l/30231819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464994916l/30231819.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><b><i>The Underworld by Kevin Canty</i></b><br /><br /><span id="freeText17396820588915395621"><b>For readers of Russell Banks and Richard Ford, a novel about loss, love, and redemption following a catastrophe in a small mining town. </b><br /><br />In <i>The Underworld</i>, Kevin Canty tells a story inspired by a true incident that begins with a disastrous fire in an isolated silver mining town in Idaho in the 1970s. Everyone in town had a friend, a lover, a brother, or a husband killed in the mine. <i>The Underworld</i> imagines the lives of a handful of survivors and their loved ones—a young widow with twin children, a college student trying to make a life for himself in another town, a lifelong hardrock miner—as they struggle to come to terms with the loss. It’s a tough, hard-working, hard-drinking town, a town of prostitutes and priests and bar fights, but nobody’s tough enough to get through this undamaged. <br /><br />A powerful and unforgettable tale about small-town lives and the healing power of love in the midst of suffering.</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1462394905l/30090925.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1462394905l/30090925.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><i><b><span id="freeText17396820588915395621">The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker</span></b></i><br /><span id="freeText17396820588915395621"></span><br /><span id="freeText2744763668658218378">She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever. <br /><br />At a private East Coast college, two young women meet in art class. Sharon Kisses, quietly ambitious but self-doubting, arrives from rural Kentucky. Mel Vaught, brash, unapologetic, wildly gifted, brings her own brand of hellfire from the backwaters of Florida. Both outsiders, Sharon and Mel become fervent friends, bonding over underground comics and dysfunctional families. Working, absorbing, drinking. Drawing: Mel, to understand her own tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.<br /><br />A decade later, Sharon and Mel are an award-winning animation duo, and with the release of their first full-length feature, a fearless look at Mel's childhood, they stand at the cusp of success. But while on tour to promote the film, cracks in their relationship start to form: Sharon begins to feel like a tag-along and suspects that raucous Mel is the real artist. When unexpected tragedy strikes, long-buried resentments rise to the surface, threatening their partnership—and hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1468786775l/29430686.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1468786775l/29430686.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><i><b><span id="freeText2744763668658218378">The River at Night by Erica Ferencik</span></b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText11462230220737602668">A high stakes drama set against the harsh beauty of the Maine wilderness, charting the journey of four friends as they fight to survive the aftermath of a white water rafting accident, <i>The River at Night</i> is a nonstop and unforgettable thriller by a stunning new voice in fiction.<br /><br />Winifred Allen needs a vacation.<br /><br />Stifled by a soul-crushing job, devastated by the death of her beloved brother, and lonely after the end of a fifteen-year marriage, Wini is feeling vulnerable. So when her three best friends insist on a high-octane getaway for their annual girls’ trip, she signs on, despite her misgivings.<br /><br />What starts out as an invigorating hiking and rafting excursion in the remote Allagash Wilderness soon becomes an all-too-real nightmare: A freak accident leaves the women stranded, separating them from their raft and everything they need to survive. When night descends, a fire on the mountainside lures them to a ramshackle camp that appears to be their lifeline. But as Wini and her friends grasp the true intent of their supposed saviors, long buried secrets emerge and lifelong allegiances are put to the test. To survive, Wini must reach beyond the world she knows to harness an inner strength she never knew she possessed.<br /><br />With intimately observed characters, visceral prose, and pacing as ruthless as the river itself, <i>The River at Night</i> is a dark exploration of creatures—both friend and foe—that you won’t soon forget.</span><br /><span id="freeText11462230220737602668">&nbsp;</span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-82726225569462832002017-02-07T10:41:00.000-05:002017-02-07T10:51:06.239-05:002016 Literary ReviewI missed getting my "Best of 2016" done before the end of the year, but here we go.<br /><br />I had a bad reading year. I read less than usual AND I didn't get reviews written on all of the books that I read, i.e. some of my book club reads. My favorite book of the year would probably have to be between <i>All the Ugly and Wonderful Things</i> by Bryn Greenwood or <i>Neverwhere </i>by Neil Gaiman.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1476868672l/26114135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1476868672l/26114135.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><i><b><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/09/review-all-ugly-and-wonderful-things-by.html">All the Ugly and Wonderful Things</a> by Bryn Greenwood</b></i><br /><br /><br /><span id="freeText17806457914509711219">As the daughter of a meth dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. Struggling to raise her little brother, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible "adult" around. She finds peace in the starry Midwestern night sky above the fields behind her house. One night everything changes when she witnesses one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold, wreck his motorcycle. What follows is a powerful and shocking love story between two unlikely people that asks tough questions, reminding us of all the ugly and wonderful things that life has to offer.</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1334771048l/474072.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1334771048l/474072.jpg" width="119" /></a></div><i><b><span id="freeText17806457914509711219"><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/06/tlc-book-tours-and-review-neverwhere-by.html">Neverwhere</a> by Neil Gaiman</span></b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText17806457914509711219"><span id="freeText5045911550626163051">Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart - and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed - a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city - a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known...</span>&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span id="freeText17806457914509711219">&nbsp;</span> <br />The other eight, in no particular order, would be:<br /><br /><i><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/02/tlc-book-tours-and-review-golden-son-by.html">The Golden Son</a></i> by Shilpi Somaya Gowda<br /><br /><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/03/tlc-book-tours-and-review-americas.html"><i>America's First Daughter</i></a> by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie<br /><br /><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/05/quick-review-kind-worth-killing-by.html"><i>The Kind Worth Killing</i></a> by Peter Swanson<br /><br /><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/05/tlc-book-tours-and-review-girls-on-fire.html"><i>Girls on Fire</i></a> by Robin Wasserman<br /><br /><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/05/review-tsar-of-love-and-techno-by.html"><i>The Tsar of Love and Techno</i></a> by Anthony Marra<br /><br /><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/08/review-cast-iron-cooking-recipes-tips.html"><i>Cast-Iron Cooking</i></a> by Rachael Narins<br /><br /><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/09/tlc-book-tours-and-review-be-frank-with.html"><i>Be Frank with Me</i></a> by Julia Claiborne Johnson<br /><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/09/tlc-book-tours-and-review-commonwealth.html"><i><br /></i></a><a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/2016/09/tlc-book-tours-and-review-commonwealth.html"><i>Commonwealth</i></a> by Ann Patchett<br /><br /><br />I've had a slow start to 2017 so far. Let's hope that I can pick up the pace. Let's read! nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-70658500115431196042017-02-07T10:05:00.000-05:002017-02-07T10:05:19.911-05:00Love of Reading<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a9WOaLovBfk/WJnhOGeJ3_I/AAAAAAAAGxY/drifPQXZBKQXusRzdpEh2H3X1Sq-g1c8QCLcB/s1600/16473116_1458703647495018_7878669065586073476_n.png.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a9WOaLovBfk/WJnhOGeJ3_I/AAAAAAAAGxY/drifPQXZBKQXusRzdpEh2H3X1Sq-g1c8QCLcB/s640/16473116_1458703647495018_7878669065586073476_n.png.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br />nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-37701129014941196252017-01-10T16:10:00.002-05:002017-01-10T16:10:37.934-05:00QUICK REVIEW: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386699861l/18079776.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386699861l/18079776.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><i><b>Synopsis</b></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.<br /><br />Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.<br /><br />As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.<br /><br />Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.<br /><br />This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.</span></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Hardcover, 384 pages<br />Published January 7th 2014 by Viking<br />ISBN 0670024783 (ISBN13: 9780670024780)</span><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"> </span></i><br /><br /><b><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">About the Author</span></i></b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1387316516p8/4711.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1387316516p8/4711.jpg" width="160" /></a></div><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">SUE MONK KIDD was raised in the small town of Sylvester, Georgia. She graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970 and later took creative writing courses at Emory University and Anderson College, as well as studying at Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and other writers’ conferences. In her forties, Kidd turned her attention to writing fiction, winning the South Carolina Fellowship in Literature and the 1996 Poets &amp; Writers Exchange Program in Fiction.<br /><br />When her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, was published by Viking in 2002, it became a genuine literary phenomenon, spending more than 2½ years on the New York Times bestseller list. It has been translated into 36 languages and sold more than 6 million copies in the U.S. and 8 million copies worldwide. Bees was named the Book Sense Paperback Book of the Year in 2004, long-listed for the 2002 Orange Prize in England, and won numerous awards.<br /><br />The Mermaid Chair spent 24 weeks on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, reaching the #1 position, and spent 22 weeks on the New York Times trade paperback list. She is also the author of several acclaimed memoirs, including the New York Times bestseller Traveling with Pomegranates, written with her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor. Kidd lives in Florida with her husband.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></i><br /><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span></i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Check out the author's <a href="http://www.suemonkkidd.com/">website</a></span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Follow the author on <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%40SueMonkKidd&amp;src=typd">Twitter</a></span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Friend the author on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/suemonkkidd">Facebook</a></span><br /><br /><b><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">My Thoughts</span></i></b><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Hetty (aka Handful), a young slave on a Charleston plantation, is given to Sarah on her eleventh birthday as a handmaid. The story follows the lives of Hetty and Sarah over the course of 35 years, laying bare the differing difficulties that both endure throughout their lives.</span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">This story is inspired by the historical figure Sarah Grimke, and it was fascinating to read more about the lives and accomplishments of her and her younger sister after finishing the story.</span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Hetty is indeed a "handful", and a willful young girl who grows into an impressively strong young woman.&nbsp;</span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Sarah likewise is willful, and finds herself constricted by social standards for women. She is smart and ambitious, but trapped in a man's world. So she carves out a place for herself in a world that only views women as wives and mothers or property or burden.</span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"></span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"></span><br />I liked this story. There were a lot of hard moments to get through, but overall it was rather inspiring and perhaps even empowering. And it made me realize how closely intertwined women's rights and civil rights were, as the real Sarah Grimke was heavily involved with both. Hetty is equally impressive in her struggles, and fights tooth and nail for everything. This is a great book club read!<i><b><br /></b></i><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><b>Buy Now:</b></span></i><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-invention-of-wings-sue-monk-kidd/1115700090?ean=9780143121701"><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Barnes and Noble</span></a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Wings-Sue-Monk-Kidd/dp/0143121707/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1484082110&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=invention+of+wings"><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">Amazon</span></a><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143121701">IndieBound </a></span><br /><span id="freeText6283119270470878159">&nbsp;</span><br /><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><b>My Rating:&nbsp;</b></span></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DzHYk_1K5is/WHVNmxpkfYI/AAAAAAAAGv0/VHwjowvfIMQpql08x45vxar51IqJR9LjgCLcB/s1600/Bplus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DzHYk_1K5is/WHVNmxpkfYI/AAAAAAAAGv0/VHwjowvfIMQpql08x45vxar51IqJR9LjgCLcB/s1600/Bplus.jpg" /></a></div><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><b>&nbsp;</b></span></i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"></span><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"> </span></i><br /><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span></i><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span></i><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span></i><i><span id="freeText6283119270470878159"><br /></span></i><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>This book was the <span style="font-family: inherit;">November <span style="font-family: inherit;">2016</span></span> selection for the Cape Coral Bookies.</i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-59710376669270613022016-11-15T18:13:00.000-05:002016-11-15T18:13:21.405-05:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: The Dude Diet by Serena Wolf<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1460910638l/29100257.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1460910638l/29100257.jpg" width="162" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b>Synopsis</b></i></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">From chef and creator of the popular food blog Domesticate-Me.com, 125 outrageously delicious yet deceptively healthy recipes for dudes (and the people who love them), accompanied by beautiful full-color photography.<br /><br />Dudes. So well intentioned when it comes to healthy eating, even as they fail epically in execution—inhaling a "salad" topped with fried chicken fingers or ordering their Italian hero on a whole wheat wrap (that makes it healthy, right?).<br /><br />There are several issues with men going on diets. First, they seem to&nbsp;be misinformed about basic nutrition. They are also, generally, not excited about eating "health food." You can lead a dude to the salad bar, but you can’t make him choose lettuce.<br /><br />Enter Serena Wolf—chef, food blogger, and caretaker of a dude with some less than ideal eating habits. As a labor of love, Serena began creating healthier versions of her boyfriend’s favorite foods and posting them on her blog, where she received an overwhelming response from men and women alike. Now, in <b><i>The Dude Diet</i></b>, Serena shares more than 125 droolworthy recipes that prove that meals made with nutrient-dense whole foods can elicit the same excitement and satisfaction associated with pizza or Chinese take-out.<br /><br /><b><i>The Dude Diet</i></b> also demystifies the basics of nutrition, empowering men to make better decisions whether they’re eating out or cooking at home. Better still, each recipe is 100% idiot-proof and requires only easily accessible ingredients and tools. With categories like Game Day Eats, On the Grill, Serious Salads, and Take Out Favorites, <b><i>The Dude Diet</i></b> will arm dudes and those who love them with the knowledge they need to lead healthier, happier lives—with flattened beer bellies and fewer meat sweats.<br /><br /><b><i>The Dude Diet</i></b> includes&nbsp;102 full-color photographs.</span></i></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">Hardcover, 352 pages<br />Published October 25th 2016 by Harper Wave<br />ISBN 0062424386 (ISBN13: 9780062424389)&nbsp;</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aInNmLC9xrA/WCsOse3dfqI/AAAAAAAAGsQ/HV_zqeAqdEk9K6y7lKovw7Az7f6Ov1k6QCLcB/s1600/Serena%2BWolf%2BAP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aInNmLC9xrA/WCsOse3dfqI/AAAAAAAAGsQ/HV_zqeAqdEk9K6y7lKovw7Az7f6Ov1k6QCLcB/s200/Serena%2BWolf%2BAP.jpg" width="133" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711"><i><b>About the Author </b></i></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">(from the back cover)</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711"><i>Serena Wolf is a graduate of Harvard University and Le Cordon Bleu Paris. She puts her culinary skills (and sense of humor) to work as a private chef, culinary instructor, food writer, recipe developer, and blogger at Domesticate-Me.com. She lives in New York with her dude. </i></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">Check out the author's <a href="http://domesticate-me.com/">website</a></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">Follow the author on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/serenagwolf/">Instagram</a></span></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">My Thoughts</span></b></i></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">You know, I'm not a dude, but I tend toward eating like one. I like fatty, salty comfort food. I want nachos and chili and steak and grilled sandwiches. My hips are not happy about this. I need to trick myself into eating healthfully while convincing my stomach and brain that I'm still just as bad as ever!</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">This book can help with that little problem. The author offers up recipes that will appeal to any "dude", while making those who care about them feel okay about what they are feeding their dude. The full title says it all: "The Dude Diet: Clean(ish) Food for People Who Like to Eat Dirty". That's me! I like to eat dirty!</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711">The book is divided into chapters like Badass Breakfasts and Take-Out Favorites. The author starts out with an introduction on how <span style="font-family: inherit;">how <span style="font-family: inherit;">her boyfriend got her started on this path<span style="font-family: inherit;">, leading to not only this book, but also<span style="font-family: inherit;"> the website Domesticate-Me.com. <span style="font-family: inherit;">S</span>he <span style="font-family: inherit;">was pleasantly surprised at the enthusi<span style="font-family: inherit;">astic response she received from not only her boyfriend, but from<span style="font-family: inherit;"> plenty of du<span style="font-family: inherit;">des everywhere<span style="font-family: inherit;">-- even a couple of NFL players.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The book includes a list of 14 "Dude Diet Commandments", with <span style="font-family: inherit;">"rules" like:&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText10627666801408750711"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2. I shall eat more fish, poultry, and lean pork. Red meat is an indulgence, not a diet staple. </span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">12. I shall exercise on a regular basis. Such exercise will break a sweat. Sitting in a steam room or sauna does not count.</blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">She then walks you through the basics of the Dude <span style="font-family: inherit;">Diet, and how to be successful at it<span style="font-family: inherit;"> before leading you into a collection of recipes like Apple Pie Overnight Oats and Cheeseburger Quinoa Bake, and classics like Epic Meat<span style="font-family: inherit;">l<span style="font-family: inherit;">oaf and</span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Du<span style="font-family: inherit;">de Diet Philly Cheesesteaks</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now <span style="font-family: inherit;">in full disclosure I admit that I</span> tried the Skirt Steak and Avocado Quesadillas, and I <span style="font-family: inherit;">must</span> be honest and say that I was not a fan. However I also must say that I don't think this <span style="font-family: inherit;">really <span style="font-family: inherit;">reflects much on the recipe, but rather that I <span style="font-family: inherit;">discovered that I <span style="font-family: inherit;">am not a fan of the flavor or texture of skirt stea<span style="font-family: inherit;">k</span> (which I'd never had before)<span style="font-family: inherit;"> nor </span>whole wheat tortillas. With a few tweaks to suit my own taste buds, I think this recipe could be a winner. There are still plenty of recipes in the book that don't contain skirt stea<span style="font-family: inherit;">k. The Apple Pie Overnight Oats are at the t<span style="font-family: inherit;">op of the list, a<span style="font-family: inherit;">s well a<span style="font-family: inherit;">s Chick<span style="font-family: inherit;">en Parmesan, Chopped Chicken Club Salad with Honey-Mustard Dressing, and Double Chocolate Pound Cake.&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2016/10/serena-wolf-author-of-the-dude-diet-on-tour-octobernovember-2016/">website</a> for the full tour schedule:</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Monday, October 17th: <a href="http://redheadwithbook.com/book-review-the-dude-diet-by-serena-wolf/">#redhead.with.book</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Friday, October 28th: <a href="http://www.create-with-joy.com/2016/10/the-dude-diet-book-review.html">Create With Joy</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Friday, October 28th:&nbsp;<a href="http://joyfullyretired.com/2016/10/28/book-review-the-dude-diet/">Joyfully Retired</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Monday, October 31st:&nbsp;<a href="http://justcommonly.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-dude-diet-cleanish-food-for-people.html">Just Commonly</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tuesday, November 1st: <a href="http://artbookscoffee.com/">Art Books Coffee</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wednesday, November 2nd: <a href="http://www.libraryofcleanreads.com/2016/11/the-dude-diet-cleanish-food-for-people.html">Library of Clean Reads</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thursday, November 3rd: <a href="https://wall-to-wall-books.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-dude-diet-serena-wolf.html">Wall-to-Wall Books</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Monday, November 7th:&nbsp;<a href="http://strandupdate.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-dude-diet.html">Stranded in Chaos</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tuesday, November 8th:&nbsp;<a href="https://whatwillshereadnext.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/tlc-book-tours-the-dude-diet/">What Will She Read Next</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wednesday, November 9th: <a href="https://jathanandheather.com/2016/11/09/dude-diet/">Jathan &amp; Heather</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Monday, November 14th:&nbsp;<a href="https://rebeccaradish.com/">Rebecca Radish</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tuesday, November 15th:&nbsp;<a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thursday, November 17th:&nbsp;<a href="http://ohthatstasty.com/">Oh, That’s Tasty!</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Friday, November 18th: <a href="http://wildmoobooks.blogspot.com/">WildmooBooks</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Monday, November 21st:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fromthetbrpile.blogspot.com/">From the TBR Pile</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tuesday, November 22nd: <a href="http://inbedwithbooks.blogspot.com/">In Bed with Books</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">TBD:&nbsp;<a href="http://familycorner.blogspot.com/">Diary of a Stay at Home Mom</a></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b>My final word:</b></i> This is a great idea for helping the dude<span style="font-family: inherit;">s in your life<span style="font-family: inherit;">, as well as yourself,</span> eat more healthfully. We're talking hearty food cleaned up and ma<span style="font-family: inherit;">de <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">lighter without losing flavor. It's a homerun!</span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b>Buy Now:</b></i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062424389/the-dude-diet">HarperCollins</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dude-diet-serena-wolf/1123566605?ean=9780062424389">Barnes and Noble</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dude-Diet-Clean-People-Dirty/dp/0062424386/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1477073470&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+dude+diet">Amazon</a></span><br /><br /><i><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">My Rating: </span></b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1h8VUjn0kz4/WCt4xy4vwcI/AAAAAAAAGsg/s16hI-T4JF4EODnfDESqyXl8pexwe6ZAACLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1h8VUjn0kz4/WCt4xy4vwcI/AAAAAAAAGsg/s16hI-T4JF4EODnfDESqyXl8pexwe6ZAACLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" /></a></span></b></i></div><i><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span>&nbsp; <span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br /><br /><br /><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5fc592cf-6841-312e-f244-36a2e0dc13ec" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Disclosure:</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I received a copy of this book to review </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">through TLC Book Tours and HarperCollins</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. </span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-86225137051367412642016-10-28T07:27:00.000-04:002016-10-28T07:27:01.546-04:00ON MY RADAR (10-28-16 edition): Books that have hit my radar...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/HurricaneAndrewFLRADAR.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/HurricaneAndrewFLRADAR.png" width="200" /></a></div>Here are some books that have recently hit my radar and set off my alarm bells...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1469408007l/30079724.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1469408007l/30079724.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><i><b>Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh</b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText9362437005274041036"><b>An electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our time</b><br /> Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel<i> Eileen</i> was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by <i>The Washington Post </i>and the<i> San Francisco Chronicle</i>, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. But as many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories.<i> Homesick for Another World </i>is the rare case where an author's short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel.&nbsp;</span><br /><span id="freeText9362437005274041036"><br /> And for good reason. There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful, and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities.<i> Homesick for Another World </i>is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of her voice, the echt Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O'Connor, and<i> Homesick for Another World </i>is her <i>Everything That Rises Must Converge </i>or <i>A Good Man is Hard to Find</i>. The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful. But beauty comes from strange sources. And the dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating. We're in the hands of an author with a big mind, a big heart, blazing chops, and a political acuity that is needle-sharp. The needle hits the vein before we even feel the prick.</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461534976l/28650417.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461534976l/28650417.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><b><i><span id="freeText9362437005274041036">Siblings and Other Disappointments by Kait Heacock</span></i></b><br /><br /><span id="freeText9362437005274041036"><span id="freeText8362815188788305969">Kait Heacock delves into the vulnerability of relationships and the various ways families fight, forgive, or fall apart. Her debut collection of twelve short stories follows a long-haul truck driver, a mother waiting for the rapture, newlyweds on a trip to the mountains, a father who competes in food-eating competitions, and an array of other characters scattered throughout Central Washington, down to Nevada, and up to Alaska. Each story explores themes of loneliness and isolation and how those exist both apart from our families and within them. <i>Siblings and Other Disappointments</i> unpacks the myriad meanings of the word family and the ways in which the bonds of those units are forged, dissolved, or simply maintained.</span>&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464918942l/30199328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464918942l/30199328.jpg" width="125" /></a></div><i><b><span id="freeText9362437005274041036">Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw</span></b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText9362437005274041036"><span id="freeText18027819366048313910">John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.<br /><br />He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.<br /><br />As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker than the expected social evils. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.</span>&nbsp;</span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-20185405963326745492016-10-25T14:39:00.005-04:002016-10-25T14:39:55.293-04:00SHARING: A Reader's Blessing<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wc3re1JHayg/WA-mosSpuPI/AAAAAAAAGqk/tnBp0_qTyz0VXBGq3viaDZiXZL0JvZyEwCLcB/s1600/AReadersBlessing-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wc3re1JHayg/WA-mosSpuPI/AAAAAAAAGqk/tnBp0_qTyz0VXBGq3viaDZiXZL0JvZyEwCLcB/s640/AReadersBlessing-web.jpg" width="376" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grant Snider of <a href="http://www.incidentalcomics.com/">Incidental Comics</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br />nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-6630002066741370992016-10-25T13:00:00.000-04:002016-10-25T13:00:04.342-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: News of the World by Paulette Jiles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KgpqAIr64Uw/WA98HAImG1I/AAAAAAAAGqM/R_ggUjCQPnQvZFhH2CBt652IML0nHGNcACEw/s1600/News%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWorld%2Bcover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KgpqAIr64Uw/WA98HAImG1I/AAAAAAAAGqM/R_ggUjCQPnQvZFhH2CBt652IML0nHGNcACEw/s200/News%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWorld%2Bcover.png" width="152" /></a></div><i><b>Synopsis</b></i><br /><br /><i><b>Longlisted for the National Book Award–Fiction</b><br /><br />It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.<br /><br />In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.<br /><br />Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.<br /><br />Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, <b>News of the World</b> is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.</i><br /><br />Hardcover, 224 pages<br />Published October 4th 2016 by William Morrow (first published March 29th 2016)<br />ISBN 0062409204 (ISBN13: 9780062409201)<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4xD4TWbwYsQ/WA98Zx0N7ZI/AAAAAAAAGqM/eTaH2fKFqMIkJvY1oAotxqY1oMHrg6q4wCEw/s1600/Paulette%2BJiles%2BAP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4xD4TWbwYsQ/WA98Zx0N7ZI/AAAAAAAAGqM/eTaH2fKFqMIkJvY1oAotxqY1oMHrg6q4wCEw/s200/Paulette%2BJiles%2BAP.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><i><b>About the Author</b></i><br /><br /><i>Paulette Jiles is a novelist, poet, and memoirist. She is the author of Cousins, a memoir, and the novels <b>Enemy Women</b>, <b>Stormy Weather</b>, <b>The Color of Lightning</b>, <b>Lighthouse Island</b>, and <b>News of the World</b>. She lives on a ranch near San Antonio, TX.</i><br /><br />Check out the author's <a href="http://paulettejiles.com/">website</a>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><i><b>My Thoughts</b></i><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Captain Kidd laid out the Boston Morning Journal on the lectern and began to read from the article on the Fifteenth Amendment. </blockquote>Captain Kidd is in his "golden years", left a widower with two grown daughters and grandchildren. He's a bit restless, still on the road and not quite ready to settle just yet. He travels Texas offering readings of the news. People pay to hear him recite the news of the country and the world at large for various reasons-- some just like the social aspect of gathering with a group to hear the news, some are illiterate and incapable of reading the news themselves. Whatever their own personal reason, people gather for a dime a piece to hear Captain Kidd read.<br /><br />While Captain is in Wichita Falls, he is approached with the request that he take a young captive and return her to her family. Young Johanna was taken captive at the age of six by the Kiowa after they had killed her parents and little sister, and adopted by a Kiowa couple. She was raised by Turning Water and Three Spotted as their own for four years, until the Kiowa decided that it was too dangerous for them to keep a captive white girl when there are soldiers always looking for a reason to battle. So she was traded back to the whites at the age of ten, finding herself surrounded by strangers she doesn't know or understand, frightened and confused and yearning to return to the only family she knows.<br /><br />The Captain agrees to transport her back to her family, and so begins their three-week journey to San Antonio. Along the way they fight battles, both literal and figurative, with small victories occurring at every turn. Every smile and every English word is a victory, but as time goes on every step of the hoof and turn of the wagon wheel brings them closer to separation.<br /><br />The author says in "A Note From the Author" that it seems all captive children who had been brought back to "civilization" had yearned to return to their Indian families, regardless of how little time they spent with their adopted families. The author says that her Irish character Doris Dillon said it best:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"...You can put her in any clothing and she remains as strange as she was before because she has been through two creations...To go through the first creation is a turning of the soul we hope toward the light, out of the animal world. God be with us. To go through another tears all the making of the first creation and sometimes it falls to bits. We fall into pieces. She is asking, Where is that rock of my creation?"</blockquote>When trying to think of how this book made me feel, the word that came to mind was "wistful". Yes, "wistful", yearning, longing. You feel for this little girl who was ripped from the only family she seems to remember, the only life she knows, and given to a stranger to return her to people she doesn't know and info forced assimilation. You feel for the Captain, separated from his family who are living lives of their own, he himself alone in the world.<br /><br />The author's writing is a bit like the wagon journey they are on-- slow, steady, and gets the story where it's going. It's not overly laden with flourish, nor overly emotional or descriptive, yet effective. Her characters are well formed and relatable.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2016/10/paulette-jiles-author-of-news-of-the-world-on-tour-october-2016/">website </a>for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Tuesday, October 4th: <a href="http://brokenteepee.com/news-world-paulette-jiles-book-review/">Broken Teepee</a><br /> Wednesday, October 5th: <a href="http://bibliophiliac-bibliophiliac.blogspot.com/2016/10/review-news-of-world.html">Bibliophiliac</a><br /> Friday, October 7th: <a href="http://www.justonemorechapter.com/2016/10/review-news-of-world-by-paulette-jiles.html">Just One More Chapter</a><br /> Monday, October 10th: <a href="http://booknaround.blogspot.com/2016/10/review-news-of-world-by-paulette-jiles.html">BookNAround</a><br /> Tuesday, October 11th:&nbsp;<a href="https://aliteraryvacation.blogspot.com/2016/10/tlc-book-tours-review-of-news-of-world.html">A Literary Vacation</a><br /> Wednesday, October 12th:&nbsp;<a href="http://strandupdate.blogspot.com/2016/10/news-of-world.html">Stranded in Chaos</a><br /> Thursday, October 13th:&nbsp;<a href="http://nomoregrumpybookseller.blogspot.com/2016/10/news-of-world-by-paulette-jiles-giveaway.html">No More Grumpy Bookseller</a><br /> Friday, October 14th:&nbsp;<a href="http://booksiesblog.blogspot.com/2016/10/news-of-world-by-paulette-jiles.html">Booksie’s Blog</a><br /> Monday, October 17th:&nbsp;<a href="http://kahakaikitchen.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-book-tour-stops-here-review-of-news.html">Kahakai Kitchen</a><br /> Tuesday, October 18th:&nbsp;<a href="https://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/2016/10/news-of-world-by-paulette-jiles.html">Lesa’s Book Critiques</a><br /> Wednesday, October 19th:&nbsp;<a href="https://booksonthetable.com/2016/10/19/news-of-the-world-book-review/">Books on the Table</a><br /> Thursday, October 20th:&nbsp;<a href="https://inpossibility.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/book-review-news-of-the-world-by-paulette-jiles/">Dwell in Possibility</a><br /> Monday, October 24th:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.booksaremything.blogspot.com/">Tina Says…</a><br /> Tuesday, October 25th:&nbsp;<a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br /> Wednesday, October 26th:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.literaryquicksand.com/">Literary Quicksand</a><br /> Thursday, October 27th:&nbsp;<a href="http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/">A Bookworm’s World</a><br /> Friday, October 28th:&nbsp;<a href="http://ricki-treleaven.blogspot.com/">Art @ Home</a><br /> Monday, October 31st:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thebookdivasreads.com/">The Book Diva’s Reads</a><br /> Tuesday, November 1st: <a href="http://manoflabook.com/wp/">Man of La Book</a><br /> TBD: <a href="http://www.fictionzeal.com/">FictionZeal</a><br /> TBD: <a href="https://thepaperbackpilgrim.wordpress.com/2016/10/">The Paperback Pilgrim</a><br /><br /><i><b>My final word: </b></i>This is one of those sweet and gentle reads, and at 200 pages, it's a fast read as well. There are moments of tragedy and heartbreak, but for the most part it is a sweet story as this old man wandering at the end of his life falls in with a young girl who is lost and seeking the nomadic yet grounded life she has known. The two of them turn out to be quite well-suited for one another, and the Captain will become more to this little girl than anyone ever expected. This is a good rainy-day read, to sit curled up with on a gray and overcast rainy or snowy day.<br /><br /><i><b>Buy Now:</b></i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062409201/news-of-the-world">HarperCollins</a><br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/news-of-the-world-paulette-jiles/1122221517?ean=9780062409201">Barnes and Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/News-World-Novel-Paulette-Jiles/dp/0062409204/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475214851&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=news+of+the+world">Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://indiebound.org/">IndieBound</a><br /><br /><i><b>My Rating: </b></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><b><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FfBPwqB5k8E/WA-OSbVMqNI/AAAAAAAAGqU/xvTIig1TT7gaF-Ox5tBSK9sNvjd4MMfEgCLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FfBPwqB5k8E/WA-OSbVMqNI/AAAAAAAAGqU/xvTIig1TT7gaF-Ox5tBSK9sNvjd4MMfEgCLcB/s1600/Aminus.jpg" /></a></b></i></div><br /><i><b><br /></b></i><i><b><br /></b></i><i><b><br /></b></i><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through <span style="font-family: inherit;">HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours</span>, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The book that I received was an uncorrected proof, and quotes could differ from the final release. &nbsp;</i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-90678892891778384982016-10-23T08:18:00.000-04:002016-10-23T08:18:00.558-04:00READATHON 2016: End of Event Survey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2Tv71quSX0/WAynPWW4K5I/AAAAAAAAGpo/2HeUM9GnnvQ0nOLYILSd4XaZJBSqgpcZACLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2Tv71quSX0/WAynPWW4K5I/AAAAAAAAGpo/2HeUM9GnnvQ0nOLYILSd4XaZJBSqgpcZACLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Well, that's a wrap! Another readathon comes to an end, and I have failed once again to accomplish whatever goals I set for myself. Too many distractions combined with the inability to stay awake.<br /><br /><h4>End of Event Survey</h4><ol><li>Which hour was most daunting for you? <b>Every hour</b></li><li>Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? <b>Nope. I didn't even get through my one, although I should finish it today. It actually would be a pretty good book for someone to read during the readathon, as it is interesting and a short book (News of the World by Paulette Jiles)</b></li><li>Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next season? <b>Nope</b></li><li>What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? <b>Everyone always does a great job</b></li><li>How many books did you read? <b>I didn't complete any</b></li><li>What were the names of the books you read? <b>News of the World by Paulette Jiles</b></li><li>Which book did you enjoy most? <b>(only one I read)</b></li><li>Which did you enjoy least? <b>see above</b></li><li>How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? <b>I think I've only missed one or two over the last 7 years. I will always be a reader.</b></li></ol>And that's all folks! We'll see you next year!<b> </b>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-44969663666049162152016-10-22T20:37:00.003-04:002016-10-22T20:38:31.795-04:00READATHON 2016: Mid-Event Survey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zQ77AQ0rHrM/WAthBE_NGUI/AAAAAAAAGpc/RLRcXKVeIwYQ77rpDAsjD-dJI_8a349DgCEw/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zQ77AQ0rHrM/WAthBE_NGUI/AAAAAAAAGpc/RLRcXKVeIwYQ77rpDAsjD-dJI_8a349DgCEw/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" /></a></div><br />Busy, busy! I'm trying to read when I can, but I've had things I had to get done today. If I can finish this one book, the event will have been a success for me!<br /><br /><b>Mid-Event Survey</b><br /><br />1. What are you reading right now? <b>News of the World by Paulette Jiles</b><br />2. How many books have you read so far? <b>Still on this one</b><br />3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? <b>If I make it through this one, I haven't decided what I may read next. Maybe The Wolf Road or A Gentleman in Moscow.</b><br />4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? <b>It's been non-stop interruptions. I have a house full of animals, urgent chores that need to be done, and I'm preparing for The Walking Dead premier event my friend and I are getting together for tomorrow. But I'm reading in between things.</b><br />5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? <b>Nothing. I've been through a lot of them now, so I know what to expect of my household, the event, and myself.</b>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-38631250661396937272016-10-22T08:59:00.003-04:002016-10-22T08:59:34.836-04:00READATHON Oct 2016: Opening Meme<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zQ77AQ0rHrM/WAthBE_NGUI/AAAAAAAAGpY/sn2qqfY8-04SyOgs1J2y5_Tf8_pFRtjQACLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zQ77AQ0rHrM/WAthBE_NGUI/AAAAAAAAGpY/sn2qqfY8-04SyOgs1J2y5_Tf8_pFRtjQACLcB/s1600/readathon_edited-1-300x193.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I'm here! I'm up! Don't start without me!<br /><br /><strong>Opening Meme:</strong><br /><br /> 1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? <b>South Florida</b><br />2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? <b>Finishing <i>News of the World by Paulette Jiles</i></b><br />3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? <b>I really didn't plan much in snacks this year. </b><br />4) Tell us a little something about yourself! <b>Single woman with a Zoocrew (3 dogs, 5 cats), this is my 7th year participating in the readathon.</b><br />5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? <b>I probably won't do anything different. These days, I just take it easy and try to get as much reading done as possible. I won't be staying up for 24 hours. I'm too old for that stuff!</b><br /><br />And that being said: Let's get this party started!<b> </b>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-45219039602230388622016-10-17T16:18:00.000-04:002016-10-17T16:18:26.096-04:00Mailbox Monday (10-17-16 edition)<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FEi7OGwPh1Y/TidxBzRbprI/AAAAAAAAD7E/6VOp-pEw6Jk/s1600/bigstock_Rural_Mailbox_127425.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FEi7OGwPh1Y/TidxBzRbprI/AAAAAAAAD7E/6VOp-pEw6Jk/s320/bigstock_Rural_Mailbox_127425.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 78%; font-style: italic;">&nbsp;Image licensed from bigstockphoto.com </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 78%; font-style: italic;">Copyright stands</span></div><br />Mailbox Monday is hosted <a href="http://mailboxmonday.wordpress.com/">here</a>. I've received a few new books recently:<br /><br /><i>Received through the Book of the Month club:&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1463229441l/28449257.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1463229441l/28449257.jpg" width="128" /></a></div><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28449257-the-wonder?from_search=true">The Wonder</a> by Emma Donoghue</b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText12544063251935267463"><strong>In Emma Donoghue's latest masterpiece, an English nurse brought to a small Irish village to observe what appears to be a miracle-a girl said to have survived without food for months-soon finds herself fighting to save the child's life.<br /></strong>Tourists flock to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, who believes herself to be living off manna from heaven, and a journalist is sent to cover the sensation. Lib Wright, a veteran of Florence Nightingale's Crimean campaign, is hired to keep watch over the girl.<br /><br />Written with all the propulsive tension that made <em>Room</em> a huge bestseller, THE WONDER works beautifully on many levels--a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a powerful psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1459524472l/29430012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1459524472l/29430012.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><br /><i><b><span id="freeText12544063251935267463"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29430012-a-gentleman-in-moscow?from_search=true">A Gentleman in Moscow</a> by Amor Towles</span></b></i><br /><br /><span id="freeText925136785242826522">With his breakout debut novel, <i>Rules of Civility</i>, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. <br /><i><br /> A Gentleman in Moscow</i> immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.<br /><br /> Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.</span><br /><br /><br /><i><span id="freeText925136785242826522">For review through TLC Book Tours:</span></i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1460910638l/29100257.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1460910638l/29100257.jpg" width="162" /></a></div><b><i><span id="freeText925136785242826522"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29100257-the-dude-diet?from_search=true">The Dude Diet</a> by Serena Wolf</span></i></b><br /><br /><span id="freeText925136785242826522"><span id="freeText12859906036270292233">From chef and creator of the popular food blog Domesticate-Me.com, 125 outrageously delicious yet deceptively healthy recipes for dudes (and the people who love them), accompanied by beautiful full-color photography.<br /><br />Dudes. So well intentioned when it comes to healthy eating, even as they fail epically in execution—inhaling a "salad" topped with fried chicken fingers or ordering their Italian hero on a whole wheat wrap (that makes it healthy, right?).<br /><br />There are several issues with men going on diets. First, they seem to&nbsp;be misinformed about basic nutrition. They are also, generally, not excited about eating "health food." You can lead a dude to the salad bar, but you can’t make him choose lettuce.<br /><br />Enter Serena Wolf—chef, food blogger, and caretaker of a dude with some less than ideal eating habits. As a labor of love, Serena began creating healthier versions of her boyfriend’s favorite foods and posting them on her blog, where she received an overwhelming response from men and women alike. Now, in <em>The Dude Diet</em>, Serena shares more than 125 droolworthy recipes that prove that meals made with nutrient-dense whole foods can elicit the same excitement and satisfaction associated with pizza or Chinese take-out.<br /><br /><em>The Dude Diet</em> also demystifies the basics of nutrition, empowering men to make better decisions whether they’re eating out or cooking at home. Better still, each recipe is 100% idiot-proof and requires only easily accessible ingredients and tools. With categories like Game Day Eats, On the Grill, Serious Salads, and Take Out Favorites, <em>The Dude Diet</em> will arm dudes and those who love them with the knowledge they need to lead healthier, happier lives—with flattened beer bellies and fewer meat sweats.<br /><br /><em>The Dude Diet</em> includes&nbsp;102 full-color photographs.</span>&nbsp;</span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-7192840257640395302016-10-17T12:43:00.000-04:002016-10-17T12:43:25.296-04:00REFERRAL: Book of the Month Club<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-akCJmN0jRu8/V_-wyyVkKsI/AAAAAAAAGoc/WRdZZZ8Xpco6OMpN5xLxy6cCF0rTEOevgCLcB/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-akCJmN0jRu8/V_-wyyVkKsI/AAAAAAAAGoc/WRdZZZ8Xpco6OMpN5xLxy6cCF0rTEOevgCLcB/s320/unnamed.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br />I joined the Book of the Month Club about a year ago, and I've been loving it! Each month, four of their regular <a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/judges">judges</a> (they have about a dozen regular recurring judges) and one special guest judge (there is a different guest judge each month) each suggest a book selection. You, as a book club member, review the offered selections and choose up to three of them to be sent to you. Your membership plan includes the first book, and any additional books are $9.99 each.<br /><br />They also now offer a couple of additional books for you to choose from each month (because there are always so many awesome books releasing, and so its hard to only suggest five)!<br /><br />The hardbound books come imprinted with the BotM logo, and the month the book was offered. The company also regularly throws in little extras (for instance, this month I got "After Book Mints" and another month a wine cozy). They also hold regular photo contests (like taking a picture to show what you get out of books, or where you read your books, etc.) where winners can win a free three-month subscription.<br /><br />Find that you don't care for any of the selections during a given month, or perhaps you are going on vacation? No problem! Just skip the month! <br /><br />Some of the books that I have received so far through the Book of the Month club:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/the-wonder-169">The Wonder</a> by Emma Donoghue<br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/more-books/all-selections/a-gentleman-in-moscow-164">A Gentleman in Moscow</a> by Amor Towles<br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/more-books/all-selections/all-the-ugly-and-wonderful-things-140">All the Ugly and Wonderful Things</a> by Bryn Greenwood <br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/more-books/all-selections/before-the-fall-124">Before the Fall</a> by Noah Hawley<br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/more-books/all-selections/flight-of-dreams-108">Flight of Dreams</a> by Ariel Lawhon<br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/more-books/all-selections/the-moor-s-account-103">The Moor's Account</a> by Laila Lalami<br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/more-books/all-selections/only-love-can-break-your-heart-100">Only Love Can Break Your Heart</a> by Ed Tarkington<br /><br />And some of the guest judges:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/judges/ALLISON-WILLIAMS-31">Allison Williams</a><br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/judges/ELLIE-KEMPER-20">Ellie Kemper</a><br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/judges/CRAIG-FERGUSON-19">Craig Ferguson</a><br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/judges/WHOOPI-GOLDBERG-16">Whoopi Goldberg</a><br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/judges/MAYIM-BIALIK-13">Mayim Bialik</a><br /><br />Use <a href="https://www.mybotm.com/838b32782281">my link</a> to sign up today, and you'll get 30% off (and I'll get a credit for a free book)!<br /><br /><a href="https://www.bookofthemonth.com/learn-more">Learn more</a> or <a href="https://www.mybotm.com/838b32782281">sign up now</a> and save 30%!nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1801676705762774578.post-70225783601890536662016-09-28T18:04:00.002-04:002016-09-28T18:04:49.093-04:00TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mj0FLcKxaTk/V-vO_ILD1zI/AAAAAAAAGnY/1gzY61eL2nArKa1v6-Dfbj0_pdDDbpsOwCLcB/s1600/Commonwealth%2Bcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mj0FLcKxaTk/V-vO_ILD1zI/AAAAAAAAGnY/1gzY61eL2nArKa1v6-Dfbj0_pdDDbpsOwCLcB/s200/Commonwealth%2Bcover.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><i><b>Synopsis</b></i><br /><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">The acclaimed, bestselling author—winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize—tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives.</span></i></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.</span></i></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">Spanning five decades,&nbsp;<b><i>Commonwealth</i>&nbsp;</b>explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.</span></i></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.</span></i></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak,&nbsp;<b><i>Commonwealth</i>&nbsp;</b>is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.</span></i></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>• Hardcover:</b>&nbsp;336 pages<br /><b>• Publisher:</b>&nbsp;Harper (September 13, 2016)</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"><i><b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">About the Author</span></span></b></i></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zUFt2929PuQ/V-vPUuI17aI/AAAAAAAAGnc/cyxCyVlscFYhiBPXjbw7ajsTzmp_mx4nACLcB/s1600/Ann%2BPatchett%2BPhoto%2Bby%2BMelissa%2BAnn%2BPinney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zUFt2929PuQ/V-vPUuI17aI/AAAAAAAAGnc/cyxCyVlscFYhiBPXjbw7ajsTzmp_mx4nACLcB/s200/Ann%2BPatchett%2BPhoto%2Bby%2BMelissa%2BAnn%2BPinney.jpg" width="156" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;">Photo by Melissa Ann Pinney</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Ann Patchett is the author of six novels and three books of nonfiction. She has won many prizes, including Britain’s Orange Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Prize, and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the co-owner of Parnassus Books.<br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Find out more about Ann on her&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.annpatchett.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1475158049809000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFElsmblh11AoLBuxTHxvzqXp3y1w" href="http://www.annpatchett.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">website</a>&nbsp;and follow her bookstore,&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://twitter.com/ParnassusBooks1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1475158049809000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH5FlGggA03pEXbY-VVdCPXGSDkNA" href="https://twitter.com/ParnassusBooks1" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Parnassus Books, on Twitter</a>.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><i><b><span style="background-color: white;">My Thoughts</span></b></i><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin. </blockquote><i><b><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></b></i>This story covers fifty years and several generations of two families bound together by infidelity, and the genuine affection that grew between the siblings of two broken families.<br /><br />Fix is a cop in California, married to the moviestar-beautiful Beverly. They are the parents to two daughters, Caroline and Franny. Franny is just a babe and the center of a christening party when deputy DA Bert Cousins shows up at Fix's door with a bottle of gin. No one knows how Bert's appearance at this party will change the lives of all involved.<br /><br />Bert and Theresa have three children at the start of their story, with one on the way, eventually finding themselves raising two boys and two girls. <br /><br />A drunken moment between Bert and Beverly grows into something more, and it destroys two families, but out if it a new one is born. Caroline and Franny live most of the time with their mother and Bert in their new house in Virginia, and in the summer Bert's kids join them. During those long summers in a sleepy town and on family trips, the kids grow to genuinely care for one another. They become true siblings, watching one another's back. Well, all except that darn annoying Albie, the baby of the group, who is the hyperactive sort and drives everyone nuts!<br /><br />This story follows these kids as they grow up, as their parents grow older, and as these kids begin having kids of their own. The story slowly builds up and then slowly unravels the truth behind what happened one terrible day that bound them all together forever.<br /><span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;</span> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xnYQQqfilCo/UtQ2XehpnZI/AAAAAAAAFkU/3J6ZZqYjXEU/s1600/tlc+tour+host.png" /></a></div><span id="freeText6515957155555904010">I would like to thank TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. Check out the <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2016/09/ann-patchett-author-of-commonwealth-on-tour-septemberoctober-2016/">website </a>for the full tour schedule:</span><br /><br />Tuesday, September 13th: <a href="http://booknaround.blogspot.com/2016/09/review-commonwealth-by-ann-patchett.html">BookNAround</a><br />Wednesday, September 14th: <a href="http://booksandbindings.com/book-review-commonwealth-by-ann-patchett/">Books and Bindings</a><br />Thursday, September 15th: <a href="http://50.87.248.190/%7Evoxlibri/?p=6189">Vox Libris</a><br />Friday, September 16th: <a href="http://www.ricki-treleaven.com/2016/09/literary-friday-commonwealth.html">Art @ Home</a><br />Friday, September 16th:&nbsp;<a href="http://books.5minutesformom.com/40051/commonwealth-by-ann-patchett/">5 Minutes For Books</a><br />Monday, September 19th:&nbsp;<a href="http://abookishwayoflife.blogspot.com/2016/09/commonwealth-novel-by-ann-patchett.html">A Bookish Way of Life</a><br />Wednesday, September 21st:&nbsp;<a href="http://achickwhoreads.blogspot.com/2016/09/tlc-book-tours-book-review-commonwealth.html">A Chick Who Reads</a><br />Thursday, September 22nd:&nbsp;<a href="http://booksaremything.blogspot.com/2016/09/tlc-blog-tour-commonwealth.html">Tina Says…</a><br />Monday, September 26th:&nbsp;<a href="http://bookchickdi.blogspot.com/">bookchickdi</a><br />Tuesday, September 27th:&nbsp;<a href="http://booksonthetable.com/">Books on the Table</a><br />Wednesday, September 28th: <a href="http://cerebralgirl.blogspot.com/">Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World</a><br />Thursday, September 29th:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.westmetromommyreads.com/">West Metro Mommy</a><br />Monday, October 3rd: <a href="https://fictionophile.wordpress.com/">Fictionophile</a><br />Tuesday, October 4th: <a href="http://www.literaryquicksand.com/">Literary Quicksand</a><br />Wednesday, October 5th: <a href="http://www.danahuff.net/">Much Madness is Divinest Sense</a><br />Thursday, October 6th: <a href="http://litandlife.blogspot.com/">Lit and Life</a><br />Friday, October 7th: <a href="http://www.thewellreadredhead.com/">The Well-Read Redhead</a><br />TBD:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.luxuryreading.com/">Luxury Reading</a><br /><br /><i><b>My final word:</b></i> This is a really great story. It's full of rich characters that you really get to know. It's written with sensitivity and humor and compassion, and there is a nice balance that keeps it from getting to heavy. Sometimes there will be a little allusion to something, piquing your interest, and only later in the story shining a light on the matter to more fully explain what happened and how you came to be here. Our book club has come to love this author, and I know that we will be adding this one to our reading list. Well done, Ann Patchett! I feel as if I just left a family reunion and miss everyone already!<br /><br /><i><b>Buy Now:</b></i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062491794/commonwealth">HaperCollins</a> <br /><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/commonwealth-ann-patchett/1123130114?ean=9780062491794">Barnes and Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Commonwealth-Ann-Patchett/dp/0062491792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1473310850&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=commonwealth">Amazon</a><br /><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/">IndieBound</a><br /><br /><b><i>My Rating:</i></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDfDNZdAspE/V-w9Fh__e4I/AAAAAAAAGns/L9NWsIo-JeIwqyiEiLWVOBMVKes2_CV5wCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDfDNZdAspE/V-w9Fh__e4I/AAAAAAAAGns/L9NWsIo-JeIwqyiEiLWVOBMVKes2_CV5wCLcB/s1600/A.jpg" /></a></div><b><i>&nbsp;</i></b> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="3" width="300" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a3fd6a2f-8b9e-f8c2-9ecf-23e88affc3a0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Cerebral Girl </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I received a copy of this book to review through <span style="font-family: inherit;">the publisher and TLC Book Tours</span>, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The book that I received was an uncorrected proof, and quotes could differ from the final release. &nbsp;</i></span></span>nfmgirlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03677291537193518055noreply@blogger.com1